Larry Koopa's A Koopsmas Karol
by CosmicKitten89
Summary: Larry is stingy and apathetic about the holidays this year. When his genius brothers team up to build a machine that makes him dream of spirits like from Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", will he change his attitude?
1. Wish Lists

It was that time of year again.

The time of year when the Paratroopas decorate the exterior Kastle Koopa with a string of colorful parallel-connected LEDs that glow brighter than the lava pools in the castle's interior.

The time of year when snowflake-shaped decorations became prevalent, even though nobody that had never traveled outside of Dark Land had ever seen a snowflake in the flesh.

The time of year when King Bowser ventured out to the lands where coniferous trees grew on snowy hills year round to chop down one of them and haul it back to his abode, to be propped up and decorated with items both edible and nonedible, lights like those strung outside, and a magical Starman on top.

Such traditions were introduced relatively recently from the Real World. Although at first they seemed bizarre, even insane to many of the Mushroom Universe and especially Dark Land, the Koopa King embraced the Yuletide culture, and had played a tremendous role in popularizing it throughout the lands under the dominion of his empire. The King's love of the holiday season had nothing to do with religion - he was not a religious reptilian, and did not much care or even know about the origins of the holiday called Christmas - or, as he often liked to call it, Koopsmas, since, being the King and a very vain King at that, he was given to agglutinating his own surname to everything.

Bowser just enjoyed the festive decorations - so much red and green, colors that he was very fond of - the music, the infectious feelings of feel-good jolliness and warmth and cheer and nostalgia that spread like the Birdo flu during that time of year, and possibly most of all, the giving and receiving of presents.

It made Bowser feel like a real success as a dad when he saw his children smile when they opened up the presents he got them. He would do just about anything to get his children what they wanted, even if it was something ridiculous; if he had to commit a crime to do it, well, it's a given that the King was no stranger to pilfering, plundering, kidnapping, burglary, robbery, and any other crime that involved taking something or someone that was not his. He also looked forward to the gifts his children made or got for him, most of them being diminutive of course since they were only children after all, but whether it was a hand-scribbled Christmas card from Lemmy or a new arrangement of one of his "theme songs" by Ludwig, it warmed his heart and made him look all the more forward to Koopsmas of next year.

Every year, he asked his children to write letters detailing what they wanted to "Santa". The big secret was that the real Santa never visited his castle; he could count on the Koopalings being too naughty, every single year, to ever make it on Santa's "Nice" list. Santa never even bothered to drop by Kastle Koopa to put coal in their stockings. Fossil fuel after all is too expensive these days, let alone to waste on spoilt rotten little brats.

Bowser of course was Santa, though not without assistance from Kamek and Kammy. Bowser was never seen without the hat in December and he loved wearing the jolly red suit. He loved eating the cookies and milk that his kids left out, and putting presents under the tree and knicknacks in the stockings hanging over the lavaplace. Once he even tried to complete the illusion, or rather delusion by naming his Paratroopas and Paragoombas after the reindeer from one of those Christmas specials that aired on his Real World channels, complete with plastic antlers and a red light-up nose on the Paragoomba in the front, and hitching them up to a sleigh. The entire escapade turned out to be a disaster, so Bowser just stuck to suiting up and skulking around the castle at midnight with a giant goodie bag from then on.

This year, he was checking over the list of things that his children wanted, and making sure that he got them everything that they asked for that was within the range of his abilities to obtain.

Ludwig, the eldest, had extremely refined tastes compared to the rest of the family, and was particularly hard to shop for, but the requests he submitted to his father were usually quite modest, and he was used to receiving most of his fancier fancies from his wealthy Real World relatives anyway. The only thing he had put on his list this year was some hi-technical espresso maker. Being the prodigy in multiple disciplines, engineering and invention included, that Ludwig was, he was quite capable of building one that was just as good if not better on his own, so it was likely that he had only asked for this so that Bowser would not be disappointed that his son did not ask for anything. Kamek was well aware of this, but Bowser was not, so Kamek just allowed him to carry on believing that he really made his eldest son's Koopsmas by granting his somewhat grudging requests.

Bowser had a hard time reading Lemmy's list, which was scribbled with crayon. He had requested one of those bouncy balls that he played with in the grocery store, a barrel full of those colorful balls from the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese's, and "a bunch of those George Washington candys like the kind Ludwig has". Bowser had no idea what Lemmy had meant by the latter request, but the grocery store bouncy ball was easy enough. The Chuck E. Cheese balls were somewhat more difficult to obtain; the manager refused to allow others to purchase the "property of Chuck E. Cheese's", so Bowser had to commit robbery to get them. I'll do even better than this, he thought, and he went and ordered an entirely new bouncy house for Lemmy, since the one he had asked for last year was not staying inflated for as long as it used to.

Roy asked for the same things he asked for every year - a new pair of shades, new earphones, a new workout machine, and a container of "manly" cologne. Everybody knew that Roy went on the perfume swapping website to exchange it for something that was far from manly or even unisex, but nobody was stupid enough to admit it to Roy's face.

Iggy's list featured a lot of very hi-technical stuff that baffled both Bowser and Kamek, so in order to get everything right they had to consult the guru of all things schweet and hi-technical himself, Francis the chameleon. Iggy wanted a microcontroller kit, a pair of mannequin legs with movable joints - "Don't ask" Francis said - a boxed set of first-edition pristine condition Dirk Drain-Head comics, issues 1 through 144 - "But LEMMY has a subscription!" Bowser protested, but Francis explained to him why the older ones were especially desirable - a boxed set of every episode of that anime series about magical girls that transform into pukey-sweet rainbow-farting ponies, along with every issue of the manga - "Thank Hell he hasn't asked for the dolls!" Bowser grumbled, until he saw that one of Francis's cutesy MeowMaid bots was on the list - Fighting Kings, the hot new PC game that all the nerds were becoming addicted to, and the one gift item that stumped Francis, a sack of chocolate milk.

"A sack of... what? That... that must be some hi-technical jargon for... something... but I've never heard of it... that's... that's IMPOSSIBLE!" Francis was having a conniption over not knowing for once what he thought was a term for something hi-technical, but Bowser just figured it was literally a sack of chocolate milk and resolved to figure out how to get a giant sackful of it. Francis initially denied Bowser's request for a MeowMaid bot, but the dragon-Koopa King frightened him too much to say no twice.

Wendy's list was the one he most dreaded, but unlike most years, she did not ask for anything too outlandishly ridiculous such as a water park or a celebrity boyfriend. Her list was a laundry list - no pun intended - of Victoria's Shell bras and panties, with very specific details about what ones she wanted; to be precise, the ones she saw the models and pop stars wearing on the fashion show; and the usual shoes, makeup, jewelry, perfume and body lotion gift sets, bath beads, and a new phone, even though her mother sent her one as an extremely late birthday present only last month.

Morton, as usual, wanted old-school rock and roll CDs and guitar equipment, but this year something truly different turned up on his wish list - a vibrating chair. Not a bad idea, Bowser realized once he had thought about it; he all of a sudden decided that he could use a vibrating chair himself. He remembered sitting in one and trying it out at that one store in the mall but he had never considered actually buying one. He groaned, however, realizing that if Morton got one then Wendy would probably scream and decide that she wanted one too.

Bowser had worked hard for the past month and gotten just about everything his kids wanted, and was patting himself on the back for it when he realized that one of his kids had not written a wish list.

"GWWWAAAAAHHHH WE FORGOT LARRY!"


	2. All About Larry

"Eh? Lawrence?" Kamek knocked on Larry's bedroom door, which was overdecorated with warning signs and an electronic lock. Larry roared in frustration and opened it.

"What do you want, geezer? You killed my... vibe."

"Ehehe, it appears that it's almost Christmas, and yet you have never submitted a wish list."

Larry scratched his head for a moment. The King usually requested the wish lists right before Black Friday, another Real World tradition that had spread to Dark Land. As Larry recalled, he had been in detention around that time. He had submitted a rubbish term paper that looked as though it had been written in another language and passed through Google Translate, and this in fact was exactly what it was. Larry had hacked into Ludwig's computer to steal an old essay of his that he had written in German, thinking that translating it would be a slick way to produce an "original" essay that would not trigger his teacher's plagiarism detector. Boy, was he wrong. As for Black Friday itself, he could not be reached because he was too busy camping out in front of the department stores to be the first one in at midnight and snag as many of the most in-demand items as he could and sell them online for jacked-up prices.

"Give me just one sec..." Larry knew exactly what he wanted. He grabbed a pen and an old Black Friday receipt and in twenty seconds wrote down his wish list.

"Here you go old timer." Kamek peered at the back of the receipt. It read:

"MONEY  
COLD HARD CASH  
MOOLAH  
COINS  
DINERO  
CHA-CHING"

Kamek groaned. He knew that the King did not like getting his children plain money as a present. A box of Coins is too impersonal, and no different than giving his kids an allowance, which he does every week.

"Larry... is that all you want, is money?"

"You heard me old timer." Larry rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. "Spare yourself the shopping trip and just give me the dough."

"B-but... you know how your father feels about giving just money as a Christmas present... eh, why not a gift card? That's kind of the same as money." Indeed, buying gift cards for Wendy's favorite places, he found, was a great way to cop out of having to actually find and purchase some of the harder-to-find items on her wish list.

"...are you kidding me?"

"Ehe, how about a gift card for, um, what's that store you like... Spencer's? Shellbucks? ...Foot Locker?"

"Money that's only good at one place, yeah, I see, hehehe. I think I'll PASS."

"Okay, then, how about, eh..." He gazed around Larry's room, a dark and filthy pigsty that smelled less of man odor than Roy's but more of fungus. An old broken tennis racquet lay on top of a pair of dirty boxers next to a stack of Playkoopa magazines. "Oh! How about a new tennis racquet, hmm? It does seem you could use one."

"Yeah... you know what, old timer? You're right. I would like to have a new tennis racquet. Haha and do you know how I can get one? By BUYING it. With MONEY."

"Gaaaahh is there ANYTHING you think about, ANYTHING you would like to have asides from money?!" Kamek asked, but he knew he would be sorry he did.

Larry affected a thoughtful expression for a few seconds. "Yeah... how about a hot tub full of hot babes?"

"Seriously, Larry. Seriously?"

"Or, you could keep it simple and stick with the cold hard cash. Geez, man, what's so freaking hard about putting a load of Coins in a pretty box and slapping a bow on it? Gimme money, or go home."

"Well, fine then, if that's the way you want it..." Kamek closed the door. "You'll get NOTHING!"

Larry rolled his eyes and continued to sulk in his room.

Later Larry got hungry and left his room and headed down to the kitchen. Larry was a disgusting teenage boy, and one of his disgusting teenage boy habits was drinking milk straight out of the carton. Or in this case, eggnog.

"HEY LARRY WANNA BUY A CANDY BAR?" Morton shouted while shoving a box of candy bars in Larry's face.

Startled, Larry spluttered. The nutmeg-laden beverage had gone up the wrong pipe.

"COUGH-I...-GASP-guess I could go for some -cough- chocolate...-gasp-"

"My Debate Club at school is hosting this fundraiser to raise money for charity so that the kiddies that are sick at the hospital can have a nice Koopsmas and anyone who can sell 100 chocolate bars by Christmas gets a backstage pass to the concert of their choice! I wanna go see The Metal Guys! Even though their lyrics are all in Shyspeak, their guitar riffs are AWESOME and their drummer is OFF THE CHAIN!"

"Cool story bro. How much?"

"Six Coins!"

Larry sneered at the box of skinny chocolate bars wrapped in pretentious gold colored wrappers. "SIX for ONE of these? THESE?! You've GOT to be kidding me. For six Coins a pop, they had better be some real fancypants chocolates."

"They're not", said Ludwig, who was sitting at a stool by the counter, taking a coffee break while working on the crossword puzzle in _The Nintendo News _newspaper with a fancy old-fashioned feather quill. Ludwig, being a European and a stereotypically snobby one at that, would of course know good chocolate.

"Hey, I've seen you selling candy for TWICE as much outside of a fat camp! LITERALLY!" Morton retorted.

"Well hey, it's no skin off my snout if the suckers would literally KILL for a sucker! Like, LITERALLY!"

"LITERALLY!" exclaimed Ludwig. "Thank you, that was just the word I was looking for! A nine letter word that is often used either redundantly or as a synonym for figuratively despite meaning just the opposite."

"Would it KILL you to buy just one for charity? Pleeeease, Larry, I only need to sell ONE MORE candy bar to get the backstage pass! Do it for me, would you? If you get me ANYTHING for Christmas just give me this!"

"Well, why are you asking me? Did Lemmy spend all his candy money?"

"Actually, yes."

"Can't you afford to buy one of your own chocolates?"

"No, I spent it all on Christmas presents."

"You sucker. Christmas is all a scam, a conspiracy to make people spend money on things for their friends and family that they would NEVER buy for themselves just so they can get things in return that they would NEVER buy for themselves, leaving both parties strapped for cash. It's Economics 101, don't you get it?"

"He's got a point, you know," Ludwig muttered, his quill swishing. "That's why I prefer to create my gifts from scratch."

"You're just saying that cause you don't wanna spend a Coin on anything for anybody, you greedy little miser!" Morton shouted at Larry.

"You're one to talk! Tell me, Mort. Would you be kissing tail trying to sell a hundred chocolates for charity if you weren't getting some big prize out of it?"

"Eeeeehhh..."

Larry smirked. "Exactly."

"FINISHED!" Ludwig proclaimed, tossing his quill in the air to fall slowly down. "That one was quite challenging. Took me all of five minutes," he said with a smirk.

Larry pulled a gingerbread Mario cookie out of the cookie jar. He laughed as he decapitated it. "'Kay, I'm just gonna chill in front of the tube while you all are kicking your own tails with this Christmas toil."

Ludwig suddenly perked up and leaped down from his stool. "Oh! My apologies, Larry, I have almost forgotten to cordially invite you to my annual Christmas stage musical. This year, Ludwig von Koopa presents _The Shellcracker_. To be performed once and once only at yours truly's Clockwork Castle."

"Haha, Shellcracker. You've certainly got the buck tooth for it!" Larry snorted as Ludwig showed him the poster for the stage production. It depicted a painting of Ludwig dressed as a toy nutcracker and blurbs such as "Tchaikovsky Reimagined!" and "Starring the Clockwork Castle Ballet Company" which of course was a troupe of clockwork ballerinas that Ludwig had designed and built himself. He had been working on this production day and night for nearly the entirety of his winter break so far from graduate school at Frankenstein University.

Larry scoffed. "Yeah, remind me to skip that joint on that day. You know stage theater ain't my thing."

Ludwig's face suddenly turned to a murderous glare. "Why, you Philistine! Have you any idea how difficult it is to hold a stable operatic vibrato whilst performing a _grand jeté_? Not to mention how EXHAUSTING it is to rehearse said routine for hours on end until one's body is adequately trained to perform it as easily as breathing? Have you any CONCEPT of how frustrating it is to test-run and debug thirteen dozen clockwork automatons, especially given that clockwork cybernetics is about ten times more difficult to master than digital robotics!"

"Sheesh, don't take it personal bro. Not everybody is into watching you prance around in spandex with your mechanical girlfriends."

"My great-uncle Wolfgang is even coming all the way from Vienna to star as Herr Drosselmeyer!" Ludwig continued to rant, but by now Larry was no longer listening.

Larry stripped a string of popcorn off the tree and nibbled it while flipping through channels. He could not find one channel that was not showing either a holiday special or a holiday commercial.

"Donate school supplies to foster kids for the holidays!"-FLIP-"Last minute savings only at-"-FLIP-"Thumpity thump thump thumpity thump thump"-FLIP- "Do you think Santa will like these new red and green"-FLIP-"HO HO HO!"

Larry snarled, on the verge of screaming, and started to flip channels faster. He felt a body small enough that it could only be Lemmy plop beside him on the couch.

"HEEEEYYY! I wanted to watch Mr. Blizzard's Happy Time Christmas Story!"

Larry almost sniggered at the title for some reason, but he refused to relinquish the remote. "Too bad! I was here first and I'm sick and tired of these ancient kiddie holiday specials"

"All you ever wanna watch is grown up movies!" Lemmy yelled, beginning to cry.

"Give it up Lemmy, let him stay here and watch his grown up movies, we goin' caroling!"

It was Roy, dressed in a scarf and snow cap.

Lemmy jumped off the couch and onto his ball. "YAAAAYYY! Let me get my hat and scarf and mittens... Hey Larry, you wanna come caroling with us?"

"Caroling?" Larry's face turned to Roy. "You?" He snorted as he tried to prevent himself from laughing.

"I ain't da one who's carolin', I'm, uh, just stickin' around to make sure Lemmy don't get beaten up by da big carolers, that's all. Cuz that's what big brothers do."

"We're going to Ice Land to sing Koopsmas carols in the old-timey villages!" said Lemmy.

"Caroling? Ugh. No, just, no. Ice Land, seriously, just so you can see your breath while you sing fa la la la la to a bunch of old coots and get shoes thrown at you? Are you two out of your gourds?"

"Larry just wants to stay home so he can watch the special grown up movies he has in his room," Lemmy whispered, loudly, to Roy. They both started laughing. Lemmy had an uncanny way of knowing just what was on Larry's mind whenever they were around each other.

"Yeah, yeah. You know what? You're right. I wanna watch my special grown up movies in PEACE right now on the big TV, so buzz off!"

Roy and Lemmy left, so Larry had the big TV in the living room all to himself, at least until Wendy came back from yet another shopping trip to take the remote and insist on watching some marathon of those awful Lifetime Original Christmas specials. She had bragged about how she wanted to buy presents for everyone today when she went out, but Larry knew that whenever Wendy bought presents for other people, she purposely chose something that she knew they didn't like, but which she did, so that they would give it back to her and she would get to keep it. And they call HIM the selfish one.

Hypocrites. A bunch of self-righteous hypocrites, he thought to himself as he went upstairs to his bedroom to fetch his "grown up movies".


	3. Geek Brothers Game Time

**Note to the reviewer signed as "Review", and to the many other readers I'm sure have wondered about this: **

**Sorry, Junior is not in this story. I thought about adding him, but I realized that when I write him into my stories, his presence is usually little more than an afterthought, since I'm really not a fan of Junior so I don't like writing about him all that much, so I elected to leave him out of this one. Either because he doesn't exist, or wasn't born yet, you decide. **

**Also, I don't see why the Koopalings' status as Bowser's kids implies Junior's existence; if anything, Junior's existence implies that the Koopalings are NOT Bowser's kids, since a name like "Bowser Junior" implies that he is Bowser's firstborn or only child. **

**Just enjoy the story. If you don't like it, then feel free to write your own all about Junior if you like!**

Ludwig was on his way back up to his music tower when Iggy came running at him.

"Ludwig! Guess what guess what?"

Iggy stood in the way of the staircase, holding something behind his back.

Ludwig sighed. "No time for guessing, Iggy. I have to rehearse for The Shellcracker."

"Weeelll, if you insist..." Iggy mock-pretentiously cleared his throat. "I took a quick little peekie poo at the pitty petents under the tree, to see what dear King Daddy had got as a gift for little old me! And I saw a package, of particular dimensions, that filled me with GLEE and I started to SIIIIING!"

Ludwig rolled his eyes. Occasionally Iggy would take on a persona who speaks everything in singsongy-voiced rhymes. Just one of Iggy's many personalities, but they were all at heart the very same Iggy. Or so Ludwig thought, most of the time.

"Because from those dimensions, I had no contentions, I knew Pops had got me - " With a flourish, Iggy brought forward the thing he was hiding behind his back - "The game FIGHTING KIIIIINGS!"

"...Oh..." After a second, Ludwig realized that the game title rung a bell... vaguely... he had heard of it here and there for the past couple of months or so, but had scarcely paid attention. Ludwig had no interest in trying to keep up with the whole mainstream "geek" scene; the crowd that cosplayed as characters from _Starship X-Naut _and religiously watched _The Blubbening _and had to own every issue of _Cyborg Wart_. He had, out of boredom, gotten into a few things such as Dungeons &amp; Dragon-Koopas a while back, but he later found out that he really did not click with the cliqueish other nerds- for instance, they seemed to care more about owning _Pink Princess _T-shirts than about studying higher mathematics or quantum physics, and while they raved about the technology in the sci-fi movies they watched, most of them neither understood it nor cared to learn enough to understand it. Apart from a few guilty pleasures, anything that reeked of "geek culture" left a bad taste in Ludwig's mouth, but Iggy was not yet quite so jaded.

"Sooooo... will you play with me? Please? PrrrRRRETTY please with maltodextrin on top?"

"Ugh... Iggy, you know I have to rehearse..."

Iggy grabbed onto Ludwig's leg as he started to ascend the stairs. "B-but that's all you've done the ENTIRE time since you've been back from winter break! Whatever happened to the BREAK in winter break! It feels like it's been AGES since we had any quality time as brothers together! When was the last time we even played a game together?"

"Iggy, we played chess only last week." _And you had to be such a sore loser too_, he added under his breath.

"I-I-I-I-I mean... I mean the last time we played a hi-TECHNICAL type game, like, a, uh, video game?"

Ludwig was not sure about Iggy, but the last time he played a video game, to his memory, was with Larry, right before he left for Frankenstein that summer. Larry had somehow gotten a deal with a game company to star in a video game about zombies and dating, sort of similar to that other dating sim about a guy named Larry, and the genre was not at all Ludwig's cup of _Kaffee. _

"Iggy, did you just say... Ach. Iggy, you have become far too influenced by that chameleon and his kin during my absence. My winter break has come not a moment too soon. This December the twenty-fifth, you shall see the LIGHT!"

"You expect me to sit through how many hours of you singing _bel canto _opera _en pointe _while playing the _glockenspiel, _and you won't even take one hour out of your day to play a video game with me?"

Ludwig groaned. "All right, point well made, I owe you." He was on the verge of burning himself out anyway.

They played the game on the computer in Iggy's room. There were many different playable kings to choose from, several different cultures and time periods from both the real world and the Mushroom World, and there were playable queens as well. It was a strategy-oriented war game, but with a lot of king-to-king action. Most of the kings rode some kind of steed, usually a horse. Ludwig picked the Viking king riding a white unicorn, much to Iggy's dismay, so he picked the Indian maharaja riding an elephant.

Iggy laughed and screamed like a maniac for the first several minutes of gameplay, and Ludwig found himself giggling kookily as well. He had forgotten what a dopamine rush these games were! As the game drew on, they got into big geeky arguments about what weapons would have what kind of effect and which warrior would win in real life and other hypothetical notions that nerds get really serious about. Not that Iggy cared, but Ludwig was pretty impressed with how historically and culturally accurate the details of the character designs were, barring the occasional fantasy element, but he was disappointed that the symbol on the Viking's Thurmuth sword was edited out. But his hypothesis eventually won out and the maharaja was knocked off his elephant and stabbed in a splash of fake video game blood.

"NOOOO! H-h-h-h-HOW could YOU win against my SUPERIOR reflexes!" Iggy fell onto the floor, squirming, as though he were pretending to have a seizure.

"Nothing keeps the fingers limber and the manual reflexes sharp quite like being a concert pianist," Ludwig said, admiring his own perfectly lacquered and polished claws.

"NOT FAIR! I would have SLAYED you if I weren't only yesterday injected with Zzzz... Zarco... Zolo... Zombo... t-t-that drug that begins with a Z..." Iggy was forced to be on a load of prescription drugs to keep his "craziness" in check, and the side effects made him a bit drowsy, his speech slow and drawled out, a bit foggy in the brain, and a bit less hyperactive. Only a bit.

"Don't you think you ought to rewrap it and put it back under the tree before King Father finds out?"

"B-b-but... JUST ONE MORE GAME... I wanna be the Beanish sultana this time... "

Little did they know that the self-proclaimed "Emperor of Eavesdropping" himself, their brother Larry Koopa, had gotten bored of watching his videos and was listening right outside the door.

"KING DAD! Oh, King DAAAA-AAAAD! Iggy opened one of his Koopsmas presents early!"

The entire castle resonated with Bowser's roar. Iggy slid into his shell. "Uh-oh"...

Bowser appeared in Iggy's room almost instantly. He was dripping and wrinkly from soaking in the hot tub for an hour.

"IGGY? WHERE IS IT? GIVE IT HERE!"

Iggy shivered in his shell. "I-I-I-I-Iiii... n-n-n-n-nnnnerrrrr..."

Ludwig put the CD-ROM back in the case and handed it over. "This one. Believe me, I had no part in his crime, I TOLD him to put it back, but he wouldn't stop pestering me to play it with him... "

Bowser snatched the game from Ludwig's grip. "You're excused. But as punishment, Iggy here doesn't get to play the game until a WEEK after Koopsmas."

Bowser left and Larry snickered. Iggy cried.

"A WHOLE WEEK AFTER KOOPSMAS! I-I-I-I can't wait that long... I'll go CRAZY! NUTS! I'll be back on vacation and I don't mean the FUN kind of vacation!" Iggy sat in the corner and hyperventilated while rocking back and forth in fetal position.

"IGGY! PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER!" Ludwig grabbed his neck and shook it. "It is NOT the end of the world just because you have to wait until New Year's to play that blasted video game."

"Well, what do YOU suppose I do until then? I've got inventor's block and I'm BORED with all my old video games!"

Ludwig stood by the doorway and glowered at Larry, the cocky little tattletale, swaggering down the hallway like he had just scored a date with the hottest girl in school. "There is only one thing to do. Larry tattled on you for one reason and one reason only, and that was to be a malicious little prick. He has not been a good boy this year, and he needs to be taught a lesson."

"I'm in," Iggy said, raising his hand but not his head out of his shell.

Ludwig struck his knee into the back of Iggy's shell and knocked him over. "Then you had better get over your inventor's block, or I'm going to have to kick you out of it."


	4. Sweet Dreams for Larry

"LARRY! WHERE IS MY PRESENT?"

Wendy stomped her heel while shouting right outside Larry's door. She had just finished wrapping the presents she bought for the Koopa family, and all the while she had checked every single package to make sure that everybody had given her at least one gift. There were none labeled "to Wendy from Larry", or from Larry to anybody else for that matter.

Larry mumbled something that was probably profane and unlocked the door. "I didn't get you any. But don't take it personal sis, I didn't get nothing for nobody else neither."

"But I just bought YOU a nice present which means you owe ME a nice present!"

"Oh, a NICE present? Why, you shouldn't have. Really. But I'm sure that it IS a really nice present, a really nice present for YOU!"

"Ugh! Oh. My. Gosh. You are like the RUDEST little brother ever! I did a lot of mall walking to find that gift of yours. IN HEELS! And the escalator was broken too!"

"So what else is new? Oh, did you break a nail this time too? Aww, that's too bad, you went through all that trouble for nothing. I never ASKED for any presents, so I am in no way obligated to give you any. But if you want to give me the present anyway, I'll take it, just make sure it comes with the receipt so I can have the refund..."

Wendy slammed the door in Larry's face, bruising his nose. He pressed the button to lock the door, snarling.

"What a... well screw her! As the old man in all those real world Christmas movies that copy the same storyline says, BAH HUMBUG!"

Meanwhile, earlier that day, Ludwig had brought Iggy into his lab and challenged him to build an interactive dream control device out of the scattered inventions around Ludwig's half of the lab. Anything that related to reading, controlling, bending, warping, enhancing, or obliterating minds was Ludwig's specialty. Iggy had only one such piece of neurogadgetry to his name, the Synapse Switcher, but Ludwig was still impressed by and even envious of it.

"Remember your Synapse Switcher?"

"I can't do it!" Iggy whined. "I told you, I've got inventor's block! And the Z drug makes it even worse!"

"This inventor's block that you speak of... do tell me more. I wonder what it feels like to suffer from such an affliction as... inventor's block..." Ludwig feigned mild bemusement at Iggy's condition, but no one knew more than Ludwig how clear as day it was that he was twistedly smirking just beneath the surface.

Iggy took the bait, and in mere hours he had built an interactive dream controller out of Ludwig's mind-controlling Lame Brainer, his new and improved Transmutational Brainwave Analyzer, and a Game Boy Color, since nobody plays with those anymore. Ludwig tested it on one of his lab Goombas, and successfully willed its dream to turn into a nightmare about being stomped by a faux-Italian plumber.

"Excellent work, Iggy. I must admit, even I could not have created it that quickly..."

Iggy beamed at the thinly concealed note of envy in Ludwig's praise. "You can't be the best at absolutely EVERYTHING, my dear brother." But even Iggy had to admit to himself that he owed it to his eldest brother for keeping him on his toes. He would have never gotten away with being so lazy and undisciplined as to allow his inventing skills to become rusty, and to blame it on such things as "inventor's block", while Ludwig was still living at Kastle Koopa.

The two went out to Shellbucks to celebrate and discuss their plans over a large gingerbread latte with double the espresso for Iggy, and a large candy cane mocha with triple the espresso for Ludwig. Eggnog lattes were also available as a seasonal treat, but unlike their father and brothers neither of them cared much for the flavor of eggnog.

When they got home Ludwig opened the medical cabinet in the basement laboratory, where he kept the meds that were prescribed to Iggy, as his lazy father entrusted him to make sure Iggy got his pills every morning, noon and evening. He took out the evening pills and shook the containers.

"Oh Iggy, it's pill time!"

Iggy, who was sitting in the kitchen talking to himself, knew that this was his cue. He screamed "NOOOO I DON'T WANNA!"

"Quit your griping or I will play Moonlight Sonata on pipe organ until you surrender!"

Iggy disliked classical music and was even frightened by much of it, but as triggering as the thought was, he reminded himself that this was all an act, and so he delivered his lines:

"Awww man do I have to? Aaaall riiiight, if you insist... but is it okay if I swallow them down with eggnog?"

"If you wish. But do not drink too much eggnog, remember that myristicin is like low-grade 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine in large doses!"

"Aaaahhh, right, THAT chemical. Gotcha! Pfft, I'll be fine, you know I know my chemicals and stuff!"

Iggy took the carton of eggnog out of the fridge and moved at an exaggeratedly slow, mock-grudging pace to the lab.

Ludwig had crushed Iggy's nighttime pills into a powder using a mortar and pestle. He placed a paper funnel in the opening on the carton and carefully poured the powdered pills into it.

"Ludwig, are you sure Larry will drink this tonight?" Iggy asked.

"Iggy, if you had been paying attention, you would know that during eggnog season, Larry heads to the fridge every night right around 2200 hours to take a hearty swig of it, brush his teeth, and go to bed. He is HOOKED on that swill, and has been ever since Roy dared him to swallow half a jar of nutmeg. Unlike Roy, he was one of the rare few that actually enjoyed the experience."

"Oh. I see. It gives him sweet dreams, or so he believes..." Iggy began to snicker maniacally.

"You know, Iggy, that when you start to do that, I'm supposed to give you your medications."

"NOOO!" Iggy shouted, and Ludwig laughed. "But not tonight! Now put this back in the fridge, and stand guard, and make sure nobody else but Larry drinks it."

Iggy did as he was told, and sat in the kitchen and waited for Larry to come. He engaged in a staring contest with the refrigerator to pass the time. But he just couldn't win; the refrigerator had too many eyes, WAY too many eyes, all those shiny photographs that were magnetically stuck to it...

He turned his head up towards the ceiling and stared up at the smoke detector. This was a very important thing to have, since Kastle Koopa was built around a volcano, and so it was always essential to know when the volcano was releasing too many toxic gases so that the family could vacate the premises until the eruption had cleared.

The smoke detector watched for smoke with a red eye that blinked. Every few seconds it would flash its red eye and it creeped Iggy out. He stared at it, measuring the time between intervals, and, realizing that every interval between flashes was the same, he learned just when to close his eyes to avoid having to see the light altogether...

His heart thumped and knocked him out of it when he heard the sound of the refrigerator door open. He saw that it was Morton, who shared just a few of Larry's disgusting teenage boy habits, as Iggy was quite aware of, and as soon as he saw that the item Morton had grabbed was the eggnog, he leaped up and ran at him screaming "NOOOOO!"

"What the... Iggy?! What are you freaking out about?"

Iggy tried to grab the eggnog away. "Y-y-you don't want to drink THIS carton of eggnog... I-I-I-I caught Larry dumping a bottle of b-b-butter rum in it."

"WHAT? But Larry KNOWS that King Dad told us no eggnog with spirits in it except on Koopsmas!"

"SSSSHHH!" Iggy covered his brother's big mouth. "Your blasted loud mouth will be the end of you one of these days..." Iggy took one of the unopened eggnog cartons out of the fridge. "Here you go, take THAT one!"

"Eh, Iggs? You're acting kinda weird..."

"I-I-I just took my night time meds, of COURSE I'm acting weird! Just go take this one on up to your room before Larry dumps a bottle of King Dad's good bourbon into it!"

"He WHAT? He's stealing King Dad's good-"

"SSSHHHH! GO!" Iggy hissed.

"Hmm, whatever! Ain't none of MY business! As for this, I'll just drink my fill and put the rest in my minifridge!"

And then finally Larry came to the kitchen. Iggy hid in his shell under the table and watched as Larry grabbed the carton and, before drinking it, searched the cabinets.

He had used the entire bottle of almond extract last night, and the last of the bottle of imitation vanilla extract the night before, and to his dismay, he could not find another bottle of either, or of any other flavoring extract dissolved in ethanol for that matter.

Oh well, I'll just use extra nutmeg, he thought, and he shook the container into the carton until nearly half of the quarter-jar that remained was gone.

He raised the carton to his lips and drank it, his Adam's apple visibly contracting with each gulp, until it was all gone. It had only about twenty percent remaining. He sighed in satisfaction, wiped the nog mustache off his face and headed for the bathroom.

Iggy sneakily followed him and peered through the cracks of the door as he brushed his teeth.

Larry brushed his teeth unusually slowly and started to drool in the sink. He vaguely realized how strangely tired he was getting all of a sudden. Maybe it's all the extra nutmeg, he thought. He yawned, put his toothbrush away without rinsing it, and dragged his tail into bed.

Without locking the security system.

Iggy listened until he could hear him snoring, and then brought Ludwig up with the equipment, which was two helmets, a laptop with extra hardware attached, and the Game Boy connected to it with an old-fashioned link cable.

"How deeply is he asleep?" Iggy asked in a whisper.

Ludwig lifted Larry by the neck and shoved the helmet on his head, making no attempt to be gentle. "Out like a light. When you're under the effects of that poison, I can giggle maniacally while playing Baroque cantatas at full volume and you won't so much as twitch. The EEG reading indicates he's already in the rapid eye movement stage. It's time."

Iggy snickered as he put the controller helmet on and turned on the laptop.

"Iggy, you do know where we are going with this, right?"

"Yeeeaaaah... can you remind me again?"

"Have you ever read A Christmas Carol?"

"Yes, in fact I've read an entire book full of them! It was called The Little Golden Book of Christmas Carols and it was just a kiddie book but it had the notes and lyrics to Deck The Halls and Jingle Bells and Hark The Herald Angels Sing-"

"Iggy, I'm not talking about a literal Christmas carol. I'm talking about the story titled A Christmas Carol. It's one of the most celebrated Christmas tales in the real world, and it's been adapted into so many movies and cartoon specials, I'm certain you've seen at least one of them at some point..."

"Hmm... Oh! Is it that one with the green dude who sneaks into everybody's house and steals all their Christmas presents? That one's my favorite! We should totally go to Toad Town one year and do that just for fun!"

"No, Iggy, not that one. As for the latter proposition, King Dad has already been there and done that. And gotten his keister kicked for it, might I add."

"Hmph! Well, we could do it better you know, we might actually pull it off!"

"Focus, Iggy."

"Hmmmm... Oh oh it's that one with the dude who lives in a volcano and his brother who lives in the snow and they hate each other but they got this fun catchy song and dance number that goes-"

"STILL WRONG, Iggy."

"D'oh... Wait I got it! It's that one with that fellow from DuckTales who has a nightmare on Christmas Eve that completely flips his personality around isn't it?"

Ludwig's face spread into a twisted grimace and he nodded in affirmation. "You do remember how the first part of that nightmare goes?"

Iggy nodded, quickly cleaned his glasses, and peered at the monitor as he let his brain go to that special twisted place where he could conceive his own twisted interpretation of that particular part of the fable.


	5. Spirit Number Negative One

Larry's mind was a blur. Too sleepy to stay awake, but his pulse was still too lively not to jolt him out of it if his brain even attempted sleep. His brain eventually faded into darkness, and he knew he needed to speak... but he could only move his lips breathlessly in feverish weakness. And then his mind was wide awake... but his body now was in sleep mode. His limbs locked and he struggled desperately to move them, gasping for dear life in case the muscles he used to inhale and exhale were the next to become paralyzed. Finally he budged, and he pushed himself up to sit up on his bed.

His room, dimly lit through the doorcracks by the torch flames burning in the castle hallways and the Koopsmas lights hung just outside his window, nothing strange here. But he wondered, why did he have this jumpy feeling in his gut, like there could be a Boo hiding in his closet, or that twisted thing hanging by the window was... moving? But it was just a Piranha Plant - a DEAD Piranha Plant. Larry had for some time been neglecting their food and water needs. Anyway, it was DEAD. It had no chance of coming back to life as a zombie plant to eat him in retaliation for not being cared for...

It was dark, his eyes were blurry, he was half asleep, and his ears were ringing with video game noises from playing video games all day. That pile of clothes was not moving, not making clanging sounds...

"WHOOOOOOoooo!"

"AAAHHHHHHHHHHHH..." Larry covered his eyes with his blanket and didn't stop screaming until he put his thumb in his mouth. The ghastly... whatever it was took the blanket away from him, forcing him to retreat into his shell.

"Wh-who-who... gulp.. are you?" Larry whimpered.

"Who am I? WHO AM I? TEEEHEEheehahaaa..."

The voice was familiar... it was... Iggy's! Larry squinted at the ghoul before him... he looked like Iggy too. But he was bound tight in a straitjacket reinforced with heavy metal chains.

"Iggy?! I... I'm tripping shrooms here... I knew I shouldn't have put that much extra nutmeg in my eggnog!"

"Aah, pfft! You'd have to eat a lot more nutmeg than that... also, I'm not Iggy... well, not the Iggy you're thinking of anyway... he-he-heHEM! I am Lord Ignatius Pugnacius Jacobian McThingamabob Marley Von van der Koop. THE THIRD. I am your great-great-GREAT-great-great-grand-second uncle five times removed. But you DO see the familial resemblance to the brother of yours that you mentioned, do you not?"

"Yeah, no question who he gets it from now. So you're a... a g-g-gh-GHOST?"

"T-th-the, um, how you say it, PC terminology is 'spirit'. But yes indeedy, I am, bluntly put, a DEAD Koopa. I've been dead for hundreds and hundreds of years... and by years I mean solar revolutions, not the Middle Toadish method of age reckoning which is by counting seasons, gahaha by their math you would already be an old timer! ANYWAY, I have come to warn you..."

"Warn me? About... about what?"

"You see, when I was a young little Koopa about your age, I was, like you, a really, _really, REALLY _naughty boy. I was very very greedy, my mind had only two things on it at all times: Money, and women greeheeheeheerrr..."

"I hear ya, old timer," Larry said, laughing.

"GAHAhaaa... getting off topic. Not only was I greedy, I was rude and callous to my siblings. If one of my brothers asked me to do him a favor that cost ME any money at all, I was like, NOPE! If they wanted me to sit through some BORING family event with them just for their selfish pleasure, I was all, SORRY! If they broke the rules, I ratted them out to dear old Pops just for the fun of it! If Sissy got me a present that I didn't ask for, would I give her something in return? Would I even say thank you? NO FREAKING WAY!"

Larry's laughter was by now sheepish. This ancestor of his was striking a few nerves in him with this story he was telling.

"Uh, hehehe, so how did you die?"

"Iiiii... pretended to be crazy to get out of being hanged for some crime I committed, which I'd rather spare you the details of... ooh, but wait, I was ALREADY crazy! Still, never hurts to play it up a little... so instead they locked me up in the asylum. And the lovely gentlemen in white coats who were running the place tried to cure me by hammering ice picks into my brain, and guess what? I DIED!"

Lightning flashed and thunder clapped as the spirit said this. Larry's hair stood on end, and he began to audibly whimper when he realized there was a backdrop of eerie music, like the kind that is played during the scenes in a horror movie full of too-quiet suspense.

"That music... do you hear it too?"

"LUDWIG CUT IT OUT YOU CAN ADD LIGHTNING AND SCARY MUSIC WHEN IT'S YOUR TURN!"

"Eh, Ludwig?"

"Uuuummm... sorry about that. Nononononoooo, not your BROTHER Ludwig if that's what you were thinking, Ludwig um just happens to be the name of one of the voices in my head. I can always tell him apart from the others by his fake German accent. Oh, I mean, Austrian accent. Of course. He's quite loud, and he NEVER STOPS BOASTING ABOUT HIS DANG...eeerrrrrmmm, never you mind. Ludwig what am I supposed to tell him again? Oh right. Anyway, after I died, can you guess where I ended up?"

"Uuuummm... weeell, looks like you pretty much ended up here."

"Oh no dear I'm merely on visitation for the night, I spend MOST of my centuries locked up in the great big asylum in the Underwhere... that place ain't exactly the Elysian Fields if you read your Homer and know what I mean, but I was spared the most severe fate, because even though that fellow who guards the pearly gates at the top of the stairs to the Overthere reckoned that I was not at all Overthere material, he nevertheless ruled that I was guiltless of all my mortal sins, by reason of insanity."

The spirit laughed - Larry could have sworn there was an echoing effect added to it. The laughter became softer, and the spirit went on.

"But you, on the other hand, cannot make such an excuse, can you? Which means that, if you don't clean up your act PRONTO, then when the time comes that it's GAME OVER for you - and let's face it, you never know when you're gonna say fall into a bottomless abyss or eat the wrong kind of mushroom or catch the deadly Goombola virus - ol' Bonechill himself will have a mighty special prison cell reserved just for you."

Larry could already feel the chill in his bones. "What do you mean, clean up my... how am I supposed to... what exactly do I have to DO?!" His voice cracked in tearful frustration.

"Oh that's right! Almost forgot. You will get help learning what you need to know to do that. Tonight, you will be visited by three spirits - not including me, of course. I am but a lowly Shayde, I don't have the power to take you on a trip or teach you stuff or anything like that. Consider yourself blessed. I wish I had spirit guides to show me the way back when I was still a fleshie. Oh great googly goodness, is it 12 o'clock already?!"

Larry looked at the digital clock on his bedstand and saw that it did indeed read "12:00" in red LED numerals.

"Alas, midnight has struck, it is time for my carriage to turn back into a pumpkin... I have broken curfew, which means that my gruel will be extra-drab tomorrow morning... Fare thee well, my great great GREAT great great grandnephew five times removed!"

With a smoky POOF! the spirit changed back into his Shayde form, a blocky-looking digital wisp. The Shayde slowly faded until Larry rubbed his eyes and blinked and got the sudden sense that the spirit had never been there at all.

_What a weird dream, _he thought_. It's official, I have the most messed-up family in the universe. _ He hoped that he would fall back to sleep and be actually awake the next time he was stirred to rise from bed, but he shut his eyes tight, hid in his shell and wrapped himself like an egg roll under his blankets just in case.


	6. Ghosts of Larry's Past

**OCs in this chapter:**

**I made up Soynja and Ed de la Gume.**

**Petulia belongs to the deviantARTist known as ladywig :)**

**A few other ideas are attributable to other readers, you know who you are ;)**

"I do say, that was one brilliant performance there, Ignatius."

Iggy took the helmet off and bowed as Ludwig gave him a standing ovation. "Thank you, thank you, nerrherrherrrr... so are we agreed, that I get to do that guy and the Ghost of Koopsmas Past, and you do the other two?"

"Agreed. But I do hope you don't intend on making this spirit look like another clone of you..."

"Nyah, I thought this character should look like Lemmy, since Lemmy just seems the, eeerrrr, type for the role, you know?"

"Just so long as he doesn't behave like Lemmy."

"Oh no he's only going to LOOK like Lemmy! Ludwig? What are you doing with that?"

Ludwig had gone back to the lab while Iggy was playing the ghost in Larry's dream, and he came back with another old gizmo of his and was connecting it to the hard drive.

"It's my Clairvoyatron 3.0. It's got a GPS that you can use to pick any place in the world and see what's going on right there right now, or even in the recent past. The 3.0 is USB-compatible, so the images can be transferred to the computer, and hence, one's dreams, provided they have this particular computer."

"Ohohohoh, smart idea Luddi! Wish I had thought of that because... you know... that would be useful for when you get to do the Ghost of Koopsmas Presents..."

"Well, your inventor's mind HAS gone a bit rusty. We will have to take care of that. You need something incredibly difficult to learn to get your brain back into shape... how well-versed are you in clockwork cybernetics?"

"Ooooh, OOOOH! Ooooi, not very... B-b-but I REEEEALLY wanna learn! Will you teach me? Please Luddi? That would be sooo schweet of you, I-I-I'll schweeten the deal for you and teach you Googly, the new programming language I invented all on my own!"

"Deal." Ludwig shook Iggy's twitchy hand. "Now put the helmet on and get ready to dredge up some ghosts from Larry's past. Oh, and another thing, Iggy."

"Hrrmmm?"

"It's CHRISTmas, Iggy, not Koopsmas."

...

Once again Larry woke up to darkness. He was not used to whatever drowsy blurry feeling had come over him. He had a vague whim to get out of bed and just... stand there... and without thinking he slid out of his sheets and stood, staring, at his bedroom door.

What am I doing? He thought when he became finally lucid enough to know how absurd it was. Yet, as sluggish as he was, he felt a strange restlessness, a desire to lumber about, as languid and borderline somnambulatory as his motions might be.

He checked the clock. _It read "11:00". That's funny, I could have sworn I had woken up at twelve... oh right, that was just a dream. Have I really only been asleep for one hour?_

He thought he heard a muffled hooting sound... like an owl? But in his room... he dragged his feet nearer to his bed, and the sound became louder and less owlike... he approached the bed, and a lump rose in the sheets, going "BOOOOOOOooooo..."

Larry yelped in panic and reached for his tennis racquet, but then he remembered that it was broken. The monster under the sheets had dark holes cut in the sheets for eyes. Larry seized the sheets and pulled them away.

"Lemmy? What are you.. how did you get in my bed?!"

"Lemmy? Thou art mistaken. I may hath assum'd the form of thy brother, but as you can plainly tell, I am no brother of thine, but a spirit. Doth thou remembereth what the spirit of Lord Ignatius hath say'd to thee?"

"You can lay off the Shakespeare-speak, Lemmy, Lud ain't doing no wacky musical version of Hamlet this year." Larry was trying to convince himself that this wasn't the first of the trio of spirits that Lord Ignatius had warned him of.

"Thou doth fooleth thyself. I am the Ghost of Christmas Past, and I hath come to showeth thee the error of thine own knavish ways." The Lemmy doppelganger gazed around the room, and Larry noticed that, if this was Lemmy, then his lazy eye sure made a speedy recovery. Those eyes had become fixed on the tennis racquet at Larry's feet. "I pray thee, hast thou perchance broke thy instrument of sport?"

Larry stepped away and looked down at it. The racquet had been snapped at the handle into two pieces, which Larry had tried unsuccessfully to repair with duct tape. "Don't even go there..." Larry warned.

"Alas, but I must, for thou hath forsaken it from thy memory. Quoth the wise Koopa, he who abandoneth all recollection of his imprudent action wilt verily repeateth say'd action."

"Willeth you STOPPETH thee with ye annoyingeth olde timey type speech! Eth." Larry was trying to talk tough, but his heart was beating so fast it was making him dizzy, and his face was flushed, his brow beading up with sweat.

"Thy cheeks art red as ripe cherries, and thou hath suddenly the temperance of a thunderstorm, which methinks hath giveth away that thou doth protest too much. Mine words shall come to be fortuitous, for should ye listen, henceforth the past shall speaketh for itself. Braceth thyself, for I shall exercise mine power before thine eyes."

"No... NO! Back off...eth..." But the spirit pointed at Larry's clock and shouted "HARK!"

Larry watched as the hours on the clock rolled back at blinding speed... was this archaic-tongued spirit really taking him backwards through time?

The clock stopped at 3:00.

"Three o'clock, Christmas Eve of the year before."

Larry looked around. The room was bright with the light of the afternoon, his plants were alive, and his tennis racquet was not broken. His jaw dropped. He blinked his eyes hard a couple of times and pinched his armpits. It hurt.

A younger Larry, wrapped in a towel and fresh out of the shower walked in, humming a tune that got stuck in his head after listening to Ludwig's rehearsal.

"That's... that's me... uh... gah..." Confused, Larry was at a loss for words.

"'Tis but a recording of events past, thou cannot interact with thy past self." said the spirit.

"Ah, I see. I remember... I had a tennis game that day..."

The past Larry finished drying himself off, put on deodorant, tennis shoes, gym shorts and a sports tee. He grabbed his racquet and took off.

The Ghost of Christmas Past snapped his tiny Lemmy fingers and they were at the tennis court.

Larry's heart beat heavily when he saw his past self talking to Petulia, his tennis teammate and girlfriend at the time. They were getting ready to play a doubles game against BeanBean Academy seniors.

"Hey baby." Past Larry hugged the bespectacled, lavender-haired dragon-Koopa girl and kissed her cheek. "You game to kick some BeanBean butt?"

"You know it!" She had a naughty glint in her eyes, similar to Larry's own.

"Petulia. What a babe. I mean... she was a gold digger anyway."

"Ah, but the two of thee hath that in common, no?"

"...I guess... we also shared an interest in mutant plants."

He watched as they started to play against the BeanBean Academy students. Past Larry was visibly taken by the female of the duo.

Larry wolf-whistled. "Soynja de la Gume." The spirit gave him a reproving glare.

Past Larry spent the entire game trying to lose on purpose without looking like he was trying to lose on purpose. He "accidentally" tripped on his shoelace a few times, shot a few faults - which Petulia knew he was prone to do anyway, because of his penchant for making tricky shots. It helped that Soynja and her partner were quite skilled, too.

Past Larry leaned over and panted after the match was over, trying to make it seem like he was a lot more tired-out than he already was.

"Are you all right?" Petulia asked.

"I'm fine... I... my bros took me out to a party last night... I told them, I need to get home early and get some sleep, I got a match tomorrow! But I didn't get home till about 3 in the morning so... sorry that my game was a little off."

"It's all right, I understand." Petulia held past Larry's face in her hands and kissed him. "I gotta go now, I've got mutant Christmas trees to sell."

"Selling Christmas trees the day before Christmas? Hahaha, that's gotta be a tough sell."

"Oh, you'd be surprised to see how many people wait until the very last minute to get their tree. I best be off, time is money!"

"What a gal," Larry said wistfully, his voice cracking just a bit. "Why... just why?"

"Because..." the spirit pointed at what past Larry was doing, which was walking over to the Beanish opponent that he had become smitten by.

Soynja was tall, dressed in short shorts and a top that showed her belly button. She was cracking gum while talking to her teammate.

"Um, pardon my interruption, but I just wanted to congratulate you and your boyfriend on a game well played." Past Larry shook Soynja's hand.

"Oh, he ain't my boyfriend, he's my brother Ed."

"Oh, my dearest apologies, Ed." Past Larry turned to Ed and shook his hand too. "Charmed, simply charmed. May I have your name, dear?"

"The name's Soynja," she said. "Soynja de la Gume."

De la Gume?! Past Larry recognized that name from a list of the wealthiest businesspeople of the Mushroom World. He could also tell, by the brand labels of her clothing, shoes, sunglasses and tennis racquet that she was quite wealthy, so she was certainly one of THE de la Gumes.

"Charmed, such a pleasure to meet you." He kissed her hand after shaking it. "I'm Prince Larry Koopa. Prince is a title, by the way, not a name, just in case you were confused about that."

Soynja giggled. "What a cutie pie!"

Past Larry blushed. _Hot dog! She's falling for me too!_

"So, um, do you have any plans for Christmas?" past Larry asked.

"Uh-uh, I don't celebrate Christmas. It ain't observed in the BeanBean Kingdom."

"That's perfect! I mean, cause I don't celebrate Christmas neither," he lied, swallowing his weak giggling. "So, um, since neither of us got plans for tomorrow, how about I treat you to a da-er, out to dinner at the Chillton Hotel. Which I own, by the way." This was also a lie; he USED to own the Chillton Hotel, but a rogue plumber had caused so much costly damage that he had to file for bankruptcy and the hotel was sold to E. Gadd Enterprises. "A celebratory banquet for a game well won."

"Sounds great! Such a good sport too. Can I have your number?"

"Sure doll."

Larry grinned sheepishly at the Ghost of Christmas Past as his past self salivated over the Beanish socialite.

"Hhhhey, I needed a chick with money. So what if I'm two-timing them?"

The spirit snapped his fingers again and they were at Kastle Koopa on Christmas morning the next day.

"MERRY KOOPSMAS KIDS! IT'S PRESENT TIME!"

The Koopalings rushed out of their bedrooms and down to the tree to tear open their presents. Each of them had received a copy of the video game _Larry Koopa: Zombie Heartbreaker _from Larry. They were obviously not thrilled with the gift, but they all thanked him anyway.

"I know, I know, that game wasn't exactly at the top of anyone's wish list, but what else could I get them? Between that and the girlfriend I was going BROKE, I had invested a lot in getting that game made and I wasn't getting much in royalties cause the game wasn't selling well. Who knew that it would become a cult classic among geeks instead of the hottest-selling game of the year! I blame it on _Duel of 100: The Home Edition_."

Larry watched as past Larry opened his gifts. Ludwig gave him a Euro bill that he had picked up while vacationing with his family in real world Europe.

"How much is it worth?" Larry asked Ludwig.

"The current exchange rate from Coins to Euros, if I'm not mistaken, is 0.69. I thought you might appreciate that."

Larry snicked for a bit, then opened his next present. Lemmy had given him a small sack of chocolate coins.

"I got you those because you like coins," Lemmy said.

Roy had gotten him a 50 Cent CD.

"I thought you might like it, since you know, he named after money."

Iggy gave him a toy robot that he had made.

"You told me you like bills, so I named him Bill."

Wendy gave him a May We Please Have Some Couture gift card.

"If you can't find anything there you like, then I'll be happy to take it back."

Morton gave him a jar of cookie dough.

"You said you wanted dough for Koopsmas. Haha get it? DOUGH? HAHAHAHA!"

Past Larry laughed sarcastically. "Yeah haha real funny. Now let's see some real dough." He opened the present box from his father.

It contained Coins - ten of them. _Only ten_. His weekly allowance was 500.

Past Larry turned to his father with a sullen glare.

"ALL YOU EVER ASKED FOR YEAR AFTER YEAR WAS COINS COINS COINS! I GOT SICK AND TIRED OF IT SO THIS YEAR I DECIDED, YOU WANT COINS, I'LL GIVE YOU COINS!"

"King Dad, you gave me pocket change! Even peasants get a bigger allowance than this!"

"WELL WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO? GIVE YOU THE ENTIRE TREASURY? EVEN THAT WOULDN'T BE ENOUGH WOULD IT?"

Larry was wincing at this memory. "Can we skip through this scene, spirit? I don't think I need to relive this ENTIRE part."

The spirit snapped his fingers and they were at the Chillton Hotel, watching past Larry dine on lobster tails and caviar and sip champagne with Soynja. When the waiter brought the bill over, past Larry had quite conveniently forgotten his wallet, and Soynja offered to pick up the entire tab.

"Hehehe, now I couldn't do that with Petulia, no sirree, she was even more broke than I was!"

"Hast thou forgotten thine obligation to thine eldest brother?"

"Oh, yeah, hehehe, his holiday production that year... _The Daymare Before Koopsmas_."

The spirit snapped his fingers to a scene of Iggy dancing around the lab, singing, "CU-RING CANCER! CU-RING CANCER! FA LA LAAA!"

"Well, Iggy, I've never seen you so excited to see a production of mine..."

"B-b-but this one actually has FUN songs in it! I can't wait!"

"Iggy... I have to tell you something... _The Daymare Before Koopsmas_... was canceled."

"WHAAAAAAT?"

"A video of one of my rehearsals was leaked online, featuring a clip of that song you were singing... a load of morons from the geniuskin community on Bumblr raised a fuss over it, they claimed that the song, and the portrayal of the Wissenblaguettes was triggering, and now some geniuskin named John Doe is threatening me with a lawsuit if the performance is made."

Iggy howled in despair. "NOOOOOOOO! NONONONONOOOOOOOO! How... How DARE they!"

Ludwig was tearing up as well. "I have no idea how they even found out about it..."

"Um Ludwig I have a question."

"Yes Iggy?"

"What is a geniuskin?"

"Iggy, a geniuskin, in Bumblr jargon, is an individual who is NOT a genius, but believes that they are anyway."

The spirit turned to Larry. "Dost THOU knoweth who art John Doe?"

"Heheheheee, could be anybody..." But Larry had plotted to sabotage Ludwig's musical that year in any way that he could, and it just so happened that he found a crowd to show the musical to that not only took offense to something in this particular production, but had enough money to sue, so, in a sense, he WAS John Doe. But he knew Ludwig was smart, and would figure it out sooner or later. But not before he enjoyed a fancy date with his rich new girlfriend.

The spirit snapped his fingers, and Larry was back on the tennis court, the day after Christmas. He saw his past self standing there with the tennis racquet, waiting on Petulia, as they were getting ready to play a match against a duo from Flipside High. He stood there, wondering what was taking her so long, but then he saw her standing at the entrance to the tennis court, with hands on her hips and an angry face.

"H-hey, baby. What's the matter?"

"I heard a little something 'bout you through the grapevine. Or shall I say, _beanstalk_."

"Hehehe, sweetie, I know you think you've got a way with plants, b-but when they start talking to you..."

"I went to see your brother's performance last night, only to find out it was canceled. And you had never even texted me back when I asked WHY it was canceled. When I found out why, I saw a scheme that had your name written all over it. Your brother on the other hand was very polite and helpful. He showed off a new invention of his, called the Clairvoyatron 2.0, and I saw just what you were up to with that Beanish broad."

"Yeah, um... about that... I-I-I was just being a good sport b-b-by taking her out to eat..."

"Behind my back. At a place that you are too cheapskate to even take me to."

"B-but I didn't pay for it, I-I just pulled the old forgot-my-wallet trick. Purrretty slick, eh?"

"It's over, Cheatsy McTwoTimer." Petulia took past Larry's tennis racquet. "You break my heart, I break your-" With a single quick flex of her well-toned arms, she snapped the racquet in two.

Past Larry screamed in a falsetto. "MY... MY RACQUET... DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH THAT COST?!"

"Why don't you ask your rich NEW girlfriend to buy you a new one!" She stormed off in a huff.

"Well who needs her! At least I still have Soynja!" Larry followed as his past self ran out to the tennis court where Soynja had been playing Diamond Academy. Past Larry ran in to greet Soynja, and gasped.

Soynja had her hands in the glowing blond hair of a handsome hunk of a Beanish, their lips locked.

"S-s-Soynja?" Soynja and her new beau were lost in each other's eyes for a moment, with dopey, lovestruck smiles on their faces, before she snapped out of it.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to introduce you two. Larry, this is my boyfriend Prince Peasley. Peasley, this is my little buddy Prince Larry. My brother and I played Larry and his partner Petulia yesterday, and we won, but he was so sweet and humble about losing, he even treated me to dinner at his hotel to celebrate!"

"Splendid! Was it a fine place to eat?" asked Prince Peasley. "Shall we eat there?"

"I rate it five stars!"

"Excellent! Pleasure meeting you, my fellow Prince." Peasley patted past Larry on his mohawked head.

_Little buddy... what a... what a tease! _Past Larry ran back to the court where his broken racquet still laid. He kneeled over it and, after checking that nobody else was present, began to cry.

"PETULIA!"

"Petulia..." Larry tried to repress the tears that were welling up from being forced to relive these memories. "If only... if only Ludwig hadn't... if only _I _hadn't..."

"Only in retrospect hath the lens perfect vision, mine good fellow..."

The Lemmylike form of the Ghost of Christmas Past began to fade before Larry's eyes. He stared down at the broken tennis racquet on the court, blinked, and then saw that the tennis court was on the floor of his own bedroom.

Larry now remembered why he had allowed the Piranha plants that he and Petulia had grown together to die of thirst. Anything that reminded him of Petulia...

But he still held on to that broken racquet.


	7. HashtagChristmasPresentPartI

"Soooo, how was my Elizabethan-speak?" Iggy asked after wrapping up the nightmare he inflicted on Larry. Ludwig meanwhile had been searching for events in the Clairvoyatron 3.0 to put in Larry's dream after Iggy's turn was over.

"Work on it. Now, it's my turn to take the reins."

"Gimme juuuust one second, Luddi... I wanna see if Larry bought anything with that May We Please Have Some Couture gift card..." Iggy was fiddling with the Game Boy. "Oh! It rings a bell!" He turns to the monitor to view it.

Ludwig sighed while Iggy snickered at the monitor. "Enough, Iggy." Ludwig took the helmet away. "It's time to pull his head out of his shell and show him what has been going on right around him this season. Which makes it good thing that I added the Clarvoyatron 3.0, since it would otherwise be impossible to show him such events if they exist neither in his nor our memories. By the way, thank you for showing him that scene from your memory about what he did to last year's musical."

"So it was HIS doing that got your musical canned. I had noooo idea... Grrrr now I'm even madder at him! I reeeeeally wish you could do that musical this year, or some year, or any time Luddi, even if you have to do it in a private studio with nobody watching! Except for me, of course. CU-RING CAN-CER! CU-RING CAN-CER! FA LA LAAA! Oh look I'm u-sing a rub-ber po-lice-man I'm a GE-NI-US!"

"I will look into that."

"Ooh, ooh, would you look into giving ME the lead role? I mean, let's face it, you're too... how shall I put it... big-boned for the role of that skeleton guy anyway."

Ludwig placed the helmet on and made an image of Morton appear on the monitor. "This ghost shall assume the appearance of Morton..."

"NO! Make it WENDY!" Iggy shouted.

"Wendy?!"

"Be-because... she-this is supposed to be the Ghost of Christmas PRESENTS!"

"Christmas PRESENT, Iggy, not PRESENTS. Present as in NOW."

"That's right. Wendy always has to have her presents right NOW!"

"Iggy... I just felt that Morton is more fit for this role..."

"WHY? Because he's a BOY? Admit it, you snubbed Wendy because she's a GIRL! That's sexist! You chauvinistic patriarch-scum!"

"IGGY... you know what, you are right. Not about me being sexist, but about Wendy... This is the Ghost of Christmas Present after all, so literally, the _Zeitgeist _of the present era..." Ludwig made his "I just came up with something brilliant!" smirk and the Morton on the monitor changed into Wendy.

"Ohhhh, I see where you're going with this.. teeheehee, this hashtag-infested, militantly PC present era..." Iggy stayed tuned.

...

Larry woke up and realized he was crying. _Hey, why am I crying? I'm not sad, I just woke up, and whatever I was crying about was just a dream... _a dream about something that had actually happened, but he deliberately shoved that thought out of his mind.

Larry felt like he had gone back to bed and woken up again a hundred times that night already. The clock read "11:11". With a jolt, he realized that he had heard something special about seeing double 11s on a clock once, but he couldn't remember quite what it was... maybe that a watched clock holds still if caught at this time? Larry stared at it and counted heartbeats, knowing how many times his heart beat a minute. He counted off his per-minute heart rate and the clock still read "11:11". He counted off his heart rate again, just in case his heart was beating unusually fast right now. The clock still held still"

_This clock must be frozen, _he thought. _It could be way past 11:11 right now. Wait, why am I worried about my clock at this time of night?_

"Not to make an offensive ableist joke or anything, but why are you acting so retarded?"

Larry's heart jolted and he turned around and saw Wendy.

"Oh, Wendy, hehehe, it's just you." But, as he thought to himself, he had two questions for her. One, why was she in his room questioning him for staring at a clock, and two, since when did she start using words such as "ableist"? Wendy had recently discovered feminism, or the Bumblr form of it anyway, but so far she had never brought it up except when she felt like using it to her advantage, for example to whine about her daddy being sexist whenever her brothers got something that she wanted but didn't get, even if there was a non-sexist reason behind it, and as an excuse to treat her boyfriends like slaves. But ableism, racism, and all of the other -isms that fell under the "social justice" category were not important to her.

"I am not Wendy, I am hashtagTheGhostOfChristmasPresent. Although I personally disapprove of that title because it's not politically correct since not everybody celebrates Christmas, and to change it to hashtagTheGhostOfKoopsmasPresent would be no better and in addition quite triggering to Mushroom Kingdomers. If it were up to me I'd have the title changed to hashtagTheSpiritOfHolidaysPresent. HashtagSayHappyHolidaysNotMerryChristmas."

"Pfft. Hashtags... why do none of you ghosts speak like normal reptilian beings?"

"Was that a slur against what you would call "abnormal" reptilian beings?"

"I... eh, I didn't mean to imply... I mean, after all, you are ghosts, not living beings."

"Didn't Lord Ignatius tell you already! You're supposed to use the term "spirit", not "ghost"! HashtagCallUsSpiritsNotGhosts."

"Oh, put a sock in it Baldie and do whatever it is you came here to do!"

"Did you just bald shame...Ugh. Shut up. You know what. Just. Shut. Up. HashtagBaldIsBeautiful."

Larry crossed his arms and pouted and called her many naughtier names in his head.

"So you see, Larry, I know you do not like being told this, but you were born into a state of 'privilege'. Exactly what kind of privilege, you ask? Let's count: male privilege, dragon-Koopa privilege, straight privilege, cis privilege, youth privilege, health privilege, ability privilege, wealth privilege, and last but not least, _royal_ privilege. Compared to your siblings, you may not have eldest and therefore heir to the throne privilege, but you have a few privileges that they don't. You may not have the IQ privilege of your brothers Ludwig and Iggy, but unlike Ludwig you are well-liked in your social circles, nor do you come across as a foreigner or otherwise culturally deviant, and nobody has ever looked at you funny for putting art and academics above having a girlfriend; and unlike Iggy nobody feels like you need to be put on debilitating pharmaceuticals in order to not be a danger to yourself or others, which I suppose gives you sane privilege. You may not have the privilege of physical strength that your brothers Morton and Roy have, but you do have the privilege of being considerably more intelligent than Roy, even if you waste it by scheming instead of excelling academically, and since Morton, unlike you, is both clinically obese and a Koopa of color, I should think he would feel that you enjoy both thin privilege and color privilege; you may not be the tallest Koopaling, but you have more height privilege than Lemmy, and you do not suffer the developmental delays that he does; and while Wendy may be tough enough to kick your butt, you still at least enjoy male privilege, which she doesn't."

"Whoa, whoa... hold on just one second there, Ludwig's got women throwing themselves at him, he just chooses to ignore them. Iggy's craziness lets him get away with murder. Roy may have a hard time counting change but he's got plenty of common sense, and I've never once seen Morton get picked on for having a darker scale color, color favoritism is a human thing! Lemmy... well, ya got me there, but as far as I've seen Wendy gets FAR more privilege than oppression BECAUSE she is a girl!"

"Larry, It's to be expected that you're ignorant of your own privilege, but that does not give you the right to erase the experiences of others because you refuse to imagine life in another's shell and learn what types of issues they have that you take for granted that you don't! Now, since you asked, what I came here to do was to pull your head out of your shell and open your eyes up to the experiences, issues and strifes of those around you."

The spirit made a smartphone magically appear and started texting something into it.

"Um, I can Google things myself, thank you very much-"

"Hold your horses, you have no idea what I'm even about to do, do you? HashtagFortFrancis!"

The spirit said that after typing it into her phone, and it transported them, like a teleporter, to the inside of some fortress. But it was a fortress that Larry did not recognize, for there were anime posters and shelves with row after row of DVDs, video games and comic books and even a china cabinet stocked with action figures. A bunch of nerds dressed in costumes were seated around a round table with exquisitely-detailed figurines shaped like dragons and wizards and other mighty and mythical creatures and numbered die in the form of all five Platonic solids. Larry recognized it as Dungeons &amp; Dragon-Koopas, that snobby nerd game that Ludwig and Iggy sometimes played in the dungeon together and never let anyone else play.

"Oh... wait! Isn't this where that meganerd chameleon that Iggy's always talking about lives? He told me that he's fond of my video game. Say, I wonder how much he would charge for an autograph... hey, are those Kamek's robes?"

Ludwig and Iggy were both present, seated together. "Will you remind me again WHY I allowed you to drag me HERE as soon as I was home on winter vacation?" Ludwig was wearing what looked like Kamek's robes, while Iggy was wearing a tiara, a princess dress, fairy wings and holding a wand with a Starman at the tip.

"Teeheehee, Iggy's dressed in a girly costume!"

"Larry, stop. Stop stigmatizing and bullying. Every time you point and laugh at a male wearing the type of clothing that society labels as "female" clothing, you are reinforcing outdated and oppressive gender stereotypes that are hurtful and demeaning-"

"Gaaah, stop, STOP! All right, I'll keep my mouth shut."

Francis was seated on Iggy's side, dressed in a wizard costume with so many bells and whistles it put Ludwig's Kamek robes to shame. Larry flashed his eyes around the table, looking for hot nerd chicks to check out, but he quickly realized that there were no girls at this table. _Too bad. I wonder why... oh, probably because Francis is so desperate for a date he scares all the babes off! _He laughed to himself about this, lest the Ghost of Christmas Present reprimand him for creep-shaming or whatever the term for it is.

"HUZZAH! Are all ye fine fellows in conquest ready to embark on this new adventure?"

"YEA!" The nerds all shouted and raised their goblets, wands, scepters and swords in the air.

"But anon, we shall make time to refresh ourselves and feast. Any of ye be willing to show and tell what vittles ye brought?"

A Beanish beanpole in a knight outfit showed off his packet of Chocorooms. "Look at what I got at Otakus R Us!"

"Ooh"'s and "Aah"'s sounded out form the crowd, Francis's being the loudest.

"Chocorooms! How schweeeet! Good going, Sir Garbanzo, you did well for yourself."

"Trigger!" shouted a Toad dressed in an elf outfit.

Garbanzo looked and realized that, quite naturally of course, Toad people might be triggered by Chocorooms because their heads are shaped like the chocolatey mushroom treats. He put them away. "Sorry."

Francis opened his X-Naut lunch box. "Look what I brought - Almond Crush Pocky! So hi-technicaaaaaal!" His voice turned high and sing-songy. The other nerds ogled it in awe and jealousy.

"Ooh! Oooh! I brought matcha green tea Pocky!" shouted Iggy, raising his box of cookie sticks for all to see.

"Impressive, Princess Ignatius of the Fay Folk." said Francis. Ludwig rolled his eyes and pulled out his pack of Milka Choco Cow cookies.

"Oh lookie here, Ludwig brought chocolate cookies shaped like cows!" shouted Iggy.

Francis peered at it, then turned away and scoffed, a high and mighty look on his face. "Milka? I don't like FAKE chocolate."

Ludwig snorted. Francis wouldn't know real chocolate from guinea pig doodoo blended with sugar and hydrogenated palm tree fats. Did he even read the ingredients on the sticker on the back of his beloved Pocky?

Francis opened his lychee flavored Ramune soda and helped a green Yoshi to open his melon flavored Ramune.

"Aaahhh, sweet libations. It's been a while since we all have last seen each other. How is everybody?"

Garbanzo was the first to speak up. "I'm... stressed out, actually. Mom started dating again."

"Oooh, sorry to hear that, Sir Garbanzo," said Francis. "I feel you."

"Dad got arrested so now I have to live in a group home run by Beanish people," piped up a Koopa Troopa dressed like a Hylian warrior with his head in his shell that was sitting next to Garbanzo. "They're so weird, they talk funny, they're always laughing at everything even if it isn't funny, and I'm afraid to eat jellybeans around them in case it might trigger them. Oh, hehe, no offense, Garbanzo."

"Aw man, sorry to hear that, Shelldon. Hope everything works out for you."

"Well guess what? I got the _Toad Force V _PC game last week and it's actually NOT just a cheap effort to cash in on the TV series!" said the elf-toad who had been triggered by the Chocorooms. "I got number one on the worldwide high score rankings this week at 1,715,000!"

"W-wow... congrats Mushbert, that is so hi-technicaaaaaal!" shouted Francis. "My high score this week is only 820,000..."

"Well, guess what? My Elo rating broke 2800 last month!" boasted Ludwig. His announcement was met with an awkward silence.

"That's your cue," said Ludwig, nudging Iggy. His cue to congratulate him, with the hope that others would follow suit.

"Ooh, aah, WOW!" shouted Iggy, grabbing Ludwig's hand and vigorously shaking it.

"Congratulations, Luddi! That's a reeeally big deal, isn't it? Everybody?"

"I went to see _Clockzilla _in theaters last weekend!" said a Goomba dressed up as a dragon.

"Was it any good, Gary?" asked Francis. "I've been really digging the steampunk movement as of late, and I've been debating over whether I should see that movie in theaters or wait for it to come out on DVD."

"Oh, it's totally worth seeing in theaters!" exclaimed Gary. "The special effects are sooo hi-technical and they don't even look fake! I love the concept of a robo-Godzilla built out of clockwork as an alternative to digital cybernetics, the imagination they put into it is just WOW! Wouldn't it be schweet if clockwork technoogy that advanced REALLY existed?!"

"I know, right? Aaaahhh, the things I would do to own an actual Herr Drosselmeyer's doll..."

"Then this year's Ludwig von Koopa Christmas stage musical is right up your alley!" Ludwig pulled posters for _The Shellcracker _out of his shell and waved them in everyone's faces. "Featuring one-hundred and fifty-six clockwork ballerinas designed and constructed by yours truly, with my own patent-pending state-of-the-art cybernetic clockwork technology! Talk about hi-technical, huh?"

"Judging just by the trailers, I would say _Clockzilla _is more clockpunk than steampunk," said Garbanzo, as though he had neither seen nor heard Ludwig's announcement. "To my recollection, there was not one moment when steam was used to power anything."

"I disagree," said Francis. "Clockpunk is the preferred term for a setting inspired by real world Renaissance-era aesthetics and technology, whereas steampunk is real world 19th century-inspired. I've edited those pages on Wikipedia, so I know."

"Actually, when I went to go see it, I got a real dieselpunk vibe," said Gary. "Which makes sense, since dieselpunk is inspired by the interbellum era and the 1950s, which is around the time that the Godzilla franchise began."

"Iggy!" Ludwig hissed.

"Urrrrm... He-HEM! Luddi's musical is a real treat! Even better than a movie with clockworky special effects, because the clockwork here is REAL! See? See?" Iggy shoved the poster in Francis's face until Francis finally acknowledged it.

"Oh... a stage musical slash opera slash ballet, with score and storyline ripped from Tchaikovsky and The Nutcracker Suite, and featuring the Clockwork Castle Ballet Company, which are ballet-performing androids... sounds like a cliche layered on top of a cliche mixed up with a few contrived banalisms and wrapped up in a great big layer of trite. " He crumpled up the poster and tossed it.

Ludwig could not take one more moment of this overweight lizard affronting him during every moment that he was not pretending that Ludwig did not exist. He agreed to come and play D&amp;D because he thought it would help relieve the anxiety that was creeping up on him between working on his Ph. D. in Mad Science, his M.F.A. in Mad Music, and _The Shellcracker, _but this was not making it any better, and the urge to act out on his violent impulses was becoming harder and harder to repress.

"Iggy, I'm leaving."

"B-But the game hasn't even started!"

"And at this rate it never will. I'm sorry, Iggy, but I cannot tolerate one more moment around this insufferable clique. At least the chess club has a sense of humor. I respect Francis, I know that he made a fortune in software development and retired before he was thirty and that this is what he chooses to do with his retirement, but he has made it more than clear to me that I am not welcome to be part of his ingroup. Francis is denmother to a group of individuals who also identify as 'nerds', who are even more vulnerable and socially inept than he is. That is his power structure, he NEEDS to be the Dungeon Master at all times, and that's not just during gameplay either in case I haven't made that clear to you. He views a confident and empowered intellectual such as myself whose talents, intellect and accomplishments rival or surpass his own as a threat to that power structure. If you let him know a little more about yourself, he might begin to give you the cold shoulder as well. But I cannot tell you what to do with your life, so if you enjoy being intellectually and emotionally stunted by this crowd..." Ludwig shuddered, visibly angry at the thought, then ran out and left.

"So guess what?" announced Francis. "I just preordered _FIGHTING KINGS_!"

The crowd cheered. "HUZZAH! I asked King Daddy to give me that for Koopsmas!" Iggy had the attention span of a Cheep Cheep, so that was enough to make him forget that Ludwig had left.

Larry turned to the Ghost of Christmas Present and spoke. "Whoa... I had no idea that Francis was such a toolbag... or that Ludwig was so socially aware."

"Ludwig was already a university graduate before he entered kindergarten, as your dear King Father had forced him to, so with nothing else to do with his mind for the entire thirteen years of grade school, he picked up an uncanny level of social astuteness from observing the behavioral patterns of his classmates and teachers."

"So... wait? What does this have to do with me?"

"This isn't about YOU, Larry. This is about being more aware of the problems faced by others. I know you may think you have it tough, but how do you think Ludwig is feeling right now?"

"He... well, he feels like an outcast. A loser among losers. A nerd's nerd. It's really quite funny hehehe... except that it's really... not."

The spirit's pink lipsticked lips curved into a smile. "And what can YOU do to make him feel better?"

"That... stage show of his... but why should he care if I go? That would be, as he puts it, putting pearls before swine."

"I-er, Ludwig does his work out of sheer passion, not for the sake of pleasing anybody else. However, you have no idea how much it would mean to him for his own siblings to put in the effort to try to analyze and critique his works. All he asks of you for Christmas is not to buy him a gift or anything, but just to offer your time to watch his production, even free of charge. He respects your opinion enough to desire your presence, he knows you have the potential to educate yourself well enough to offer an educated critique, otherwise he would not have been so hurt by you choosing to pass on it."

Larry sighed. "Maybe if he wasn't such a blowhard about it..." he muttered. "So, are we gonna check up on Morton and Lemmy and Roy and Wendy and the old man?"

"That's our next mission objective. HashtagKastleKoopa!"


	8. HashtagChristmasPresentPartII

"Fake chocolate indeed," grunted Ludwig as he took his helmet off to take a breather and sip a Cookie Mountain brand holiday soda that tasted like real sugar cookies. "Remember last time when I brought a Shellbucks and he went into a rant about why Starbeans is better? Who is he kidding? Both franchises are owned by the same multiuniversal conglomerate, does he seriously think he's piping all the way to BeanBean Castle Town to patronize a mom and pop? Ignorant _Iguanian_."

"W-well, I like Francis, he's really very nice and cool, he maybe got a little upset on that day because you wouldn't stop showing off and trying to make the meeting all about YOU! What about ME? Why aren't you showing Larry a scene of what's the matter with ME this Christmas present instead of making it all about you boo hoo poor Ludwig the other nerds don't like him!"

"IGGY, don't make me make you take your meds!"

"NOOO NOT MY MEDS ALL RIGHT all right Iggy will take a chill pill... I mean he WON'T take a chill pill because he won't have to take a chill pill because he won't need it! GARharhar!"

"First of all, were you not in that scene as well? Granted, you were the one having fun, not I... secondly, what were you expecting me to do, fabricate a scene of you crying in agony and hurting yourself over video game withdrawal?"

"Tha-that hasn't happened YET..." said Iggy, "...b-b-but it WILL."

"Precisely." Ludwig had that smug look such that Iggy knew that he already had what he wanted to do in mind. "But right now, we're going to show him what's going on with Morton. See, I had this very interesting conversation with Morton earlier today, and I used my Clairvoyatron 3.0 to see what happened with him afterward, and what I found was even more interesting than I could have hoped for! It will definitely teach Larry an important lesson, that's for sure..."

"What, what? And what about Wendy and Roy and Lem Lem?"

"Shush and stay tuned, you shall find out shortly." Ludwig sipped the last of the bottle of cookie soda and got back into the helmet.

...

The Ghost of Christmas Present had transported Larry back to Kastle Koopa.

"Now this is an event that happened earlier today. You are present soon after this, but you missed a few things..."

It was the kitchen. Ludwig was coming down with the newspaper and his fancy quill and ink bottle. Soon after Ludwig started up the coffee machine, Morton entered with his box of chocolates and shoved them in Ludwig's face.

"HEY LUDWIG WANNA BUY A CANDY BAR?"

"Depends... for charity I presume?"

"Yep! the Debate Team at my school is hosting it! You get rewarded with neat things the more candy bars you sell, and I've sold so many that I only need to sell ONE MORE and they'll give me the biggest prize, which is a backstage pass to any concert of my choosing!"

"Don't fall for it Lud, it's a scam..." said Larry, but the spirit assured him, "Oh don't worry, he doesn't..."

Ludwig's eyes were already narrowing in suspicion. He picked one of the candy bars out of the box to look at the ingredients. "I don't see cocoa butter anywhere on this list - oh, but I do see palm kernel oil. Just as I figured, the kind of fare one can find 3 for a Coin at the Only 1 Coin store. How much are you selling them for?"

"Six Coins each!"

"Six coins for subpar chocolate FLAVORED confections... that's highway robbery, and you know it."

"PLEEEEASE? Would you do it for me? It would be the best present you ever got me, just buy it and give it to Lemmy, even give it to me, I'll eat it... please? If not for me, do it for charity!"

"You make a compelling case, Morton... but first, I would like to know WHAT charity."

Morton dug through the box for the charity's informational pamphlet. "It's Wissenblag Institute for Pediatric Oncology... they help treat kiddies that got cancer!"

Ludwig froze. His eyes widened as though he had seen a ghost.

"Eh? Lud? Are you all right?"

"AH! Ahem, my apologies, my dear brother, but no Coin of mine shall fund THAT organization..."

"What? Why not? What's the matter with them?"

"That so-called 'charity' that you're supporting is PURE EVIL. Wissenblag's mission is not to cure cancer-afflicted children, but to promote deadly treatments from the pharmaceutical companies that they are in bed with, subject children to clinical trials for these treatments, charge their parents with medical neglect if they refuse these treatments so that the children can be taken away and used as guinea pigs, design tests with purposefully low specificity so that more children are falsely diagnosed with cancer so they can have more guinea pigs, launch smear campaigns against more effective treatments, and file lawsuits against whistleblowers and muckrakers."

"What the... Ludwig, listen to yourself, man. You sound like a kook, you know, one of those nutty paranoid tin foil wearing conspiracy theorists!"

"And once again you have proven exactly how effective their smear campaigns are. Trust me, as somebody who has invented and discovered multiple cures for cancer, my accusations are not mere conspiracy theories."

Ludwig dipped his quill and drew a pie chart on the bottom of the chocolate box. "This is a pie chart depicting their budget for last quarter. I posted it on their page on Wikipedia, but it was taken down. Not including what the CEO makes, which is over half of all money raised... 43 percent is spent on marketing and promotion of a handful of the most profitable, but not necessarily safest drugs... 28 percent is spent on lawsuits and other legal spending... 17 percent is spent on pediatric cancer diagnosis and treatment, but only certain treatments are covered, guess which ones... 14 percent is spent on research and development and clinical trials, but I've read their research and found multiple flaws... and the remaining 8 percent is used to fund scholarships for aspiring cancer researchers, which from what I gather means some fat cat's kid who doesn't know microscopy from mitochondria is used in a promotional campaign for their research and as a reward gets money for a shopping spree to buy a dozen new pairs of designer shoes."

"Ludwig... stop. Look, if you don't want to buy a candy bar, that's okay, but I don't need you making up wacked-out excuses and trying to put me on a guilt trip over selling candy for charity! How awful of me!"

"Morton, you are so morally catatonic that your principles exhibit waxy flexibility. Have you no vertebrae, or are you really that hopelessly deluded? Use your brain! I know you have one, buried beneath all that muscle and fatty flesh; surely you have at least the sense to reason that, between you and your brother with an IQ that exceeds yours by over threefold, the latter is probably not the one who is wrong."

"LUDWIG! I can't believe that I'm the one who's saying this for once instead of the one who's being told this, but SHUT UP!"

"Fair enough. Your choice, live with it," Ludwig said brightly. He poured himself some coffee while Morton caught sight of his newspaper.

"Hey, is that _The Nintendo News_?"

Ludwig nodded. "They have better crossword puzzles than _The Koopa Kronicle_."

Soon after that, Larry saw himself come down to the kitchen to get eggnog.

"Daaaang... All right, let's move on. I drink my nog, Morton pesters me about chocolates yadayada nothing new here..."

"HashtagToadTownMall!"

Larry was transported to Toad Town Mall in the capital city of the Mushroom Kingdom. It was cold and beginning to snow outside a bit, but the mall was mostly located indoors. Morton was inside the lower floor of the food court, which was chilly inside because of the ice rink at the bottom, which gave shoppers a view of hockey players and Olympic trainees while they dined. Morton figured it would be a good place to find people since it was so crowded with last-minute shoppers.

"HEEEY ANYBODY WANNA BUY A CANDY BAR? IT'S FOR CHARITY!"

"Pfft. Sucker, I knew he'd still take the bait. I knew he didn't care about charity, all he cares about is getting to see those Metal Guys!"

"Oh what for?" asked a customer, who was a lady penguin wearing a heart necklace.

"For Wissenblag Institute of Pediatric Oncology! Whew, that's a mouthful!"

The penguin's eyes turned angry, she waddled stormily up to Morton, squawking, and pecked him on the head.

"Yow! What was that for, woman?"

"How DARE you support them! After what they did to my... my Tuxie..."

"Eh?" Morton nearly gasped. Was his brother's tirade against Wissenblag not merely raving lunacy after all?

"Sorry about that, I know you believe you're doing the right thing and all... but..."

"Tell me!"

"Five years ago, I hatched the most beautiful baby girl chick. When she... when she was two and a half, she stopped eating what I coughed up for her, so I took her to the doctor and the doctor said that my Tuxie had a nidopallial tumor - that's an avian form of brain cancer - and recommended a drug that has a very mild side effects profile and a 95 percent success rate. Tuxie did well on it and she was on the fast track to a full recovery when the insurance suddenly pulled the plug and wouldn't fund it. This was around the same time that the hospital decided to run a clinical trial funded by Wissenblag - me thinks the two events are related - it was a trial for a drug that I later discovered had earlier been proven ineffective, even deadly in clinical trials on this type of cancer, but even then I didn't want to subject my baby to being a guinea pig. But when I said no, they threatened to take my baby away and have me arrested for child neglect for not finishing her course of treatment, and that was the only reason I let them... only one round... Tuxie was only given one round..."

A tear dripped down the penguin's beak as she opened her heart necklace. One side had a picture of Tuxie, the other side said "Tuxie 2009-2013 'You were my best four years'".

Morton, for the first time in his life, was speechless.

Larry's nose was running, and he made a sniffing sound.

"Are you, by any chance... sobbing?" asked the spirit.

"NO! I'm not... I'm not crying... I'm just coming down with a cold I guess..."

"It's all right if you feel like crying, Larry. The reason you are reluctant to show tears is because of society's oppressive gender roles - it's considered socially acceptable for a woman to cry, but if a man cries he's called a wimp or a pussy. Don't let the double standard get in the way of expressing your feelings."

"HAAAAIII! I WANT SOME CHOCORET!"

It was a Sumo Bro with a fistful of cash who looked ready to buy the entire inventory and carboload on it.

"OH! A sale! I'll bet he's gonna do it, he ain't gonna pass up backstage passes to meet and greet his Shyspeak-singing rock idols..." Larry snickered.

Morton looked thrilled to see the customer. On the other hand, he turned to look at the bereaved mother penguin who was slowly waddling down to the entrance of the ice rink. Morton looked flustered, breathing hard, turning his face back and forth, blood pounding in his ears, before he finally made a decision.

"It's your lucky day bro!" Morton took all the candy bars out of the box and piled them into the Sumo Bro's arms. "These chocolate bars are all yours for FREE! Absolutely FREE! MERRY KOOPSMAS!"

The Sumo Bro grinned with piggish delight and immediately ripped open one and stuffed it into his face. "DANKOO!"

Larry was gaping in disbelief. "He's... he's lost his mind! Doesn't he know what those crooks are gonna do to him when they find out he gave their candy bars away for FREE?"

With the empty chocolate box in hands, Morton then ran down to the ice rink to catch up with the penguin lady.

"Here you go!" Morton handed her the envelopes of money from the chocolate bars he had already sold. "Merry Koopsmas!"

"Oh, but... I couldn't possibly..."

"Think nothing of it! Start an In Memory Of Tuxie foundation, work to stop that kinda stuff from happening again!"

Morton ran off before she could try to talk him into taking the money back.

This time, Larry was struck speechless.


	9. HashtagChristmasPresentPartIII

"Iggy, what are you doing?" As soon as Ludwig had taken a break, Iggy went digging through Larry's stuff.

"Oh, I'm just looking at his movie collection... Lemmy told me he had this one where-"

"UGH. Iggy, you know he watches nothing but garbage!"

"I KNOW!" Iggy panted while piling tapes and DVDs out of the milk crate, frustrated at how blank most of the covers were. "I wanna borrow some of his movies, just until I get my Fighting Kings back so that I don't die of boredom..."

_Boredom. Can he not entertain himself? _Ludwig sighed in exasperation. Fate had blessed him with but one sibling that had a brain, and that one seemed hellbent on rotting it.

"How about you instead borrow one of MY movies? Like my rendition of-"

"There are only so many times that one can watch your rendition of _The Magic Flute_ before one wants to stab oneself with it," said Iggy. "And your cheesy old horror flicks don't frighten me either."

"Ach. Iggy, I'd rather you watched Francis's _Pink Princess _anime DVD collection than the corn fungus that Larry watches... wasn't that video game project of his quite enough?"

"His video game got BORING! I already beat it like six times and then I gave it away to Francis. That's why Francis likes ME better than YOU, in case you were wondering. Nyah nyah, neener neener NEEner..."

"There are THOUSANDS of free online games, Iggy, I do not want to hear that you've got nothing to play-"

"Buuuuut... well I used to reeeeally like Cavity Crush, but pshaw, that game is like sooo 2013. And that stupid chess site is full of WEIRDOS, like everybody there is either a cat or a musical instrument! And that penguin club is full of stupid ten year olds, and I know they're ten because they don't know how to spell or do math with the alphabet yet! And I KNOW you think I should absolutely ADORE a game like Minecrap, but you know what, I don't! THAT GAME IS UGLY! And so is the guy that invented it! And the guy that invented that virtual pets website! And the guy that did his daughter's science fair project and let her pass it off as hers, whoowee she's even uglier than her pop! And those stupid Sims videos that she makes-"

Ludwig rolled his eyes and sighed and turned toward his hypothetical audience and gave them a look that said more than sighs or rolling eyes ever could.

"Don't get me started on The Sims, they are soooo ugly-"

Ludwig grabbed Iggy by his pencil neck and brought his face close to his. He spoke in a soft growl, just above a whisper.

"Iggy, I am prepared to administer your meds by enema if you do not sit down and shut up this instant. And if I do, then you will miss out on watching the part of Larry's dream where you see what happens to Lemmy. Is that UNDERSTOOD?"

Iggy nodded, trying to gulp but unable to until the grip on his throat was released. "Y-you know I don't want to miss out on Lem Lem's adventures in... didn't he say he was going caroling in Ice Land today?"

Ludwig nodded and put the helmet back on. The snow on the monitor was shaped by Ludwig's mind into the motion image of actual snow.

...

"Look out on the ice rink," said the Ghost of Christmas Present to Larry. He saw a team of hockey players practicing. One of them was faster, feistier, and more graceful than the others, but got knocked down out of being too feisty. Practice was soon over, and that hockey player removed their helmet to reveal a pink polka-dotted bow like the one the spirit next to Larry was wearing.

"WENDY?! I didn't... I had no idea she was a hockey chick! I thought she only did that twirly figure skating stuff."

"You do forget that, underneath the bow and makeup, your sister has a fierce tomboy side, don't you?"

"Well it has been a while since she... um..."

"Kicked your shell into next year, stomped you to smithereens and wiped the floor with you, or are you too macho to admit that you were beaten up by a GIRL?" The spirit laughed. "Figuratively speaking, not literally of course. Being the only female in an otherwise all-male family, Wendy had to adapt, felt the pressure to become tougher than her brothers in order not to be walked all over by them, and in the process developed an aggressive and selfish personality, and because she is a female, she is more likely than an equally aggressive and selfish male to be called out for it. Now who do we know who is male, aggressive AND selfish, and yet has Bumblr users fawning over how cute he is in his new video game instead of making memes about what a psycho or a player or a HashtagInsertNastyWordHere he is?"

"Wait, we got memes on the internet? And I'm... while she's... hehehe, that just proves that those Bumblr male tear drinkers are a load of hypocrites!"

Wendy was looking at her hand. She had broken a nail when she fell on the ice and was trying not to be a girl about it. After she took off her hockey stuff and left, she headed straight for the manicure salon.

"Say, I wanna see what she gets me for a present..."

"Not so fast mister, no peeking!"

"Aw man... she probably spent more time getting a manicure than shopping for me anyway, so I bet she did a lousy job. Let's blow this popsicle stand. Where we off to next?"

"HashtagIceLand!"

Larry was transported to a snowy village of Mushroom Houses with a backdrop of snowcapped evergreens, the rounded tops of snowcapped mountains even further in the distance. This was Freezeport Village, a touristy little hamlet where the shops sold handcrafted souvenirs year round. One of them sold wooden toys such as marionettes, Jacob's ladders and paint-your-own dollhouses shaped either like battle fortresses for boys, or fairytale palaces for girls. One of them was a candy shop like the one at the mall, but unlike the candy store at the mall it had a taffy spinning machine and the Toads running the store could be seen cutting the saltwater taffy up into pieces and wrapping it. They also sold homemade fudge and lollipops so huge one can't help wonder how one can finish the thing without getting a stomachache. During the holidays, chocolate Coins and anything in a red-green-white color scheme became a popular sell.

The noise of carolers was inescapable. Groups of people standing around, walking about, some singing beautifully, others out of tune. In the gazebo in the town square a group was even performing on instruments, with many joining in to hum or sing.

Larry saw Lemmy on his ball, singing "Deck the Halls" loudly and off-key. For his size, Lemmy had incredibly powerful lungs.

Lemmy noticed that his breath was coming out white and frosty. "Hey Roy, it looks like I'm smoking!"

Roy actually was smoking. He took the cigarette out and exhaled frosty smoke. "Yeah it do don't it?"

"Can I have some money to buy candy cigarettes so that it REALLY looks like I'm smoking?"

"Sure, go knock yourself out." Roy pulled a coin out of his shell and dropped it in Lemmy's hand.

While Lemmy wobbled away on his ball, Roy took his hat off his head and held it over his chest, threw his other arm back, leaned his head back and belted out:

"FA LA LA LA LAAAA, LA LAA LAAA LAAAAAA!"

Larry snickered. He sometimes heard Roy singing in the shower, but never would he admit it, nor do it if he thought somebody he knew was watching. "Hehehe he's like one of those... um, choir boys on that show Glee." He stopped himself from calling them an offensive word to avoid being nagged about it by the spirit again.

The carolers applauded, and the band started to play "Carol of the Bells". Lemmy bough the candy cigarettes and opened the pack and stuck one in his mouth and took it out every few seconds to blow out frosty breath and pretend he was smoking.

"Look at me I'm smoking, I'm smoking, I'm smoking!" he merrily sang-songed as he rolled back to where Roy was. He stepped off his ball, which was getting loose and floppy from the cold weather decreasing the pressure of the air inside, and looked up at Roy.

"Look Roy."

Roy looked down - he was still of course wearing sunglasses, and if anybody asked he told them that he didn't want to go snowblind.

Lemmy took the candy stick out of his mouth and blew "smoke" out. "I'm smoking!"

Roy laughed and patted Lemmy on the head. "You're such a bad boy." But he knew that Lemmy was too innocent to try smoking for real.

The band by now was playing "Here We Come A Caroling" and Lemmy started singing at the part where he recognized the tune, which was at "love and joy come to you".

"We will save you for a, we will save you for a, we will save you for a happy new year, owowoh, we will save you for a happy new year!"

Roy smacked Lemmy. "That ain't how the lyrics go, ya dummy!"

"Well I know it's a happy New Year song... what are the real lyrics?"

Roy scratched his head. "Um, I ain't so sure myself, but I know it ain't saving nobody for a happy new year, that's just stupid! Save em for what, New Year's dinner? Ha."

The band then started to play "12 Days of Christmas". Lemmy always got the words to this one wrong too.

"FIVE GOLDEN COINS! Four collie birds, three French hands, two turtle dogs, and a pot in a little plum tree! Wow Roy, what weird Christmas presents! On the eleventh day of Christmas, my bullfrog gave to me, eleven peppers pickled, ten lords a yelling-"

Roy slapped Lemmy's face down into the snow. "That ain't how you sing it stupid, ya still got it all wrong!"

"Well, I'm just gonna sing my own songs now!" Lemmy piled up some snow and stood on top of it.

"LET IT GO, LET IT GO, LA DA DA DA-"

Roy knocked Lemmy down from his snowpile. "That ain't even a Christmas song!"

"So? Neither is the happy New Year song. Deck The Halls doesn't talk about Christmas even once, Ludwig says it's about a holiday called Yule that's even older than Christmas but uses the same decorations! And Winter Wonderland and Let it Snow are just songs about winter and snow instead of Christmas as well! Your point?"

"It's annoying. And that movie is last year's news."

Lemmy then realized his ball was nothing but a saggy wrinkled bag of air, and it wasn't even leaking. "Roy, why does my ball always get floppy whenever I go to the cold places?"

"I dunno, do I look like da kinda brainiac who would know about Gay-Lussac's Law and other highfalutin junk like that? You figure it out short stuff. Just don't go rollin' around on a snowball like ya did last time, remember?"

Lemmy remembered. The snowball got bigger and bigger the more he rolled around on it and he wound up squashing people in it, Roy included.

Lemmy wandered off to look for a ball that wasn't filled with air. He couldn't find any in the toy shop, and he couldn't find anybody playing with a ball in the village. He wandered all the way outside the village, which was surrounded by a frozen moat. He saw Piranha plants sliding about the ice on their leafy legs, blowing spiky balls into the air.

"Oh wow, Ptooies!" said Larry. He had owned a domestic one before. He liked to steal its ball, which was bred to not be spiky, and use it as a hackeysack. He could tell from the look on Lemmy's face that he wanted to borrow one of their balls. Even if it was spiky, he had boots on so it wouldn't hurt.

"No... don't do it Lemmy..." If only Larry were actually there, he knew not only how to attract Ptooies but how to make them give up their balls easily.

Lemmy was stepping out onto the ice. Well, maybe he'll be safe, thought Larry; after all, Lemmy is a good skater, and probably lighter than the Ptooies, who like Lemmy seemed to ignore the "THIN ICE" warning.

Lemmy slid as though he were wearing skates - he had good enough balance to jump around and do handstands on a ball all day, to say nothing of keeping his balance while sliding on ice - and when a Ptooie slid by with its ball floating low enough, he leaped onto the ball and got blown up in the air with it.

"WHEEEE!" Lemmy seemed to be having fun, even though he had to know that he was in danger. He somersaulted as the ball fell back to the Ptooie's lips, but the plant wasn't expecting Lemmy's shell to come crashing into its face. It recoiled, then opened its mouth and both the ball and Lemmy fell it.

Larry gasped.

The Ptooie's mouth twitched and wobbled, and then it spat both Lemmy and the ball out. Lemmy was still holding onto the ball, spinning along with it.

"Let go of the ball, Lem, LET GO OF THE BALL!" shouted Larry, even though, as the spirit told him, Lemmy could not hear him in this vision.

Lemmy had been intending on falling feet-first into the Ptooie's mouth, holding its jaws open with his legs, and throwing the ball off the ice and then leaping out of the Ptooie's mouth and onto the snow.

However, Lemmy's legs just weren't long enough.

Lemmy yelped when he came to realize this, and hid in his shell, hoping the Ptooie would spit him out again. It did, and Lemmy felt his shell bump into the spiky ball that was still in the air when he was shot out. The spiky ball was knocked higher into the air, while Lemmy was knocked back down toward the plant's mouth. Lemmy stuck his limbs out just in time and closed his legs over the Ptooie's mouth, and hopped off before the spike ball could crash on his head. He grabbed the plant by its thorny stem and yanked it out of the way so that the spike ball could crash upon the ice.

The ice around Lemmy and the Ptooie cracked into a floe that sank under Lemmy's and the Ptooie's weight on one side, threatening to tip them over into the below-freezing water. Lemmy let go of the plant, which slid helplessly to its icy death. Lemmy screamed, trying to run up the slippery ice floe but to no avail - it slipped him straight under.

Roy heard Lemmy's screaming - he had already been searching for Lemmy after realizing he had snuck away while he was caught up in another carol. He ran to the outskirts of town, where he heard the screaming coming from, and saw the crack in the ice and the surrounding Ptooies bouncing their balls upon cushions of their own breath.

"Oh no he didn't... He ain't THAT stupid, is he?"

Lemmy's head bobbed out of the water and took a deep, gasping breath. He tried to hold it so he could float better, but he could only hold it for so long, teeth chattering, before he exhaled and sunk back under, too numb to struggle any further.

Roy ran over and treaded carefully upon the ice - he was no lightweight - and leaned over to dip his muscly arm in. He nearly screamed in agony at how cold it was. As he leaned over, he could feel the ice he was on cracking at the bank of the moat. His fingers were so numb, he could not feel if he had Lemmy in his grip or not. He pulled his arm out and stuck the other one in, and before it got too numb he could feel something floating up to the surface. He wrapped his arm under it and scooped it out.

It was Lemmy - frozen into an ice cube.

Roy shoved the ice cube up inside his scarf - awkwardly, since his hands were too numb to have much fine motor coordination - and jumped off the ice just in time, as it had completely cracked away into an ice floe by the time he was back on solid ground.

Roy ran across the bridge to the junkyard full of pipes and frozen Muncher plants and picked up one of the frozen Munchers and tossed it down one of the pipes.

"YO! SMOKEY! GET OUTTA THIS PIPE RIGHT NOW AND DEFROST MY BROTHER OR I'M GONNA STICK MY WEED WHACKER DOWN THIS PIPE AND TURN IT ON FULL BLAST!"

The Venus Firetrap, wearing a nightcap and holding a pillow and a teddy bear, grudgingly made its way up and aimed a gentle fireball at ice Lemmy.

The ice sizzled away in the form of steam, leaving an alive but blue and shivering Lemmy.

The Venus Firetrap began to slide back down the pipe to return to slumber. "Not so fast..." Roy pulled out another cigarette. "Light it up."

The fire plant lit his cigarette and fell back into the pipe.

"Lemmy, are ya all right?"

Lemmy opened his eyes, which were both lolling around out of focus.

"I'm f-f-f-f-fine... th-th-th-th-th-the cold never bothered me anyway..."

"I'll let that one slide. Lem, we gotta get you home." Roy removed his scarf and wrapped it around Lemmy. He climbed through the ice blocks and bricks and pipes that were home to Piranha Plants to find the Warp Pipe that would take them home.

Larry sighed in relief, but he was still shaken. "Is Lemmy all right?"

"HashtagKastleKoopa!"

Suddenly Larry was in Lemmy's bedroom, which he shared with Iggy, although Iggy, who seemed to have taken up residence in the dungeon lab, hardly ever slept there anymore. Lemmy usually slept on the top bunk, but tonight he was lying in the bottom bunk with Fire Flower balm on his forehead, being spoonfed tomato soup by Kamek. Larry had been fed that kind of soup before when he was sick - he was prone to falling ill a lot when he was younger. Kamek made it from scratch from Maxim tomatoes, a fruit native to Planet Popstar, a world in a far-off galaxy. Maxim tomatoes were purported to expedite healing and promote the growth of new tissue.

Bowser was also present. "Is he gonna be all right Kamek?"

"Too soon to tell, Your Highness. He appears to be coming down with pneumonia."

Larry gasped. "I've had pneumonia before, it ain't no joke, I can tell you that! If only I were there, I could have blown my Piranha whistle and the Ptooies would come waltzing right on over to us and then I could have shown him the easy way to get the ball without having to worry about it crashing onto the ice."

"Ah, so you regret not going out caroling with your brothers, don't you?"

"Yea...hey, wait up just one moment there, it's not MY fault that Lemmy fooled around on the ice and nearly drowned himself! It's not MY fault that he half froze to death! It's not MY fault if he gets pneumonia!"

"You're right, it's not your fault." The spirit for once shook her head in agreement.

"But..." Larry sighed.

"But it still feels like it, doesn't it?" the spirit asked. "Knowing that it's not your fault does not ease the burden of guilt, knowing that you could have changed the outcome, does it? If something happens to Lemmy, nobody will blame you for it, but you will never be able to stop blaming yourself anyway, will you?"

Larry could see right through this rhetorical little spiel, but thinking it through, he had to admit that the Wendyish-looking spirit was right.

"Is... Lemmy... going to be all right?"

The spirit laughed, in a voice that somehow sounded exactly like and yet nothing at all like Wendy's, but familiar in a way that Larry could not quite put his finger on.

"Now who do I look like, HashtagTheGhostofChristmasYetToCome?"


	10. Christmas Future 1point0

"OH NO! LEMMY'S DYING? WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?!" Iggy jumped up and ran around the room, pulling his hair and hyperventilating, trying to hold himself back from screaming.

"Iggy." Ludwig stuck his foot out and tripped Iggy. "Lemmy is NOT dying. You know how used to cold weather he is, and also how powerful his lungs are. His odds of contracting pneumonia are almost nil, and even if he does get it, he will recover swiftly."

Iggy quickly pushed himself off the floor. "But-but..."

"But I DID leave the question as to Lemmy's survival open in Larry's mind, for that is all part of the plan. Remember, our mission is to put Larry on the guilt trip of a lifetime, and where guilt doesn't work, SHEER TERROR will."

"Ooooohhhh, I seeee..." Iggy nodded slowly, wringing his hands. He swallowed and clenched his teeth. Ludwig could tell that Iggy was scared to see what kind of a nightmare Ludwig would come up with.

"I must warn you now, Iggy, that you may find the last stage of Larry's dream to be rather upsetting to watch. Just keep in mind, Iggy, that the events I place in his dream are not real, they are not going to happen in real life-"

"B-b-b-but aren't you supposed to be showing Larry his... his FUTURE?! Wait, we can't show him his future, I-I-I-I didn't put a time machine on this doohickey..."

"There is no need for one, Iggy. We will not be showing him his actual future, but rather a most horrifying turn of events of my own design. That is why I must ask you to keep calm and remember that these events are not real, as horrifying as they may seem. Can I ask you to do that, or shall I keep you calm via other means?"

"Uuuuuuuhhh... I-I'm-I'm good." Iggy nodded jerkily. "It's not real, it's not real, it's just a horror movie, it's not real, just another one of Ludwig's lame horror movies..."

Ludwig snickered. "You might not be scared of my horror movies, but when Larry was a toddler he would cry all night after seeing these and have nightmares and even-"

"Wet the bed?" asked Iggy, grinning with sly malice.

Ludwig nodded, his face tight with smirking. "He still even sucks his thumb. Scaring him straight will be too easy."

"Hmmm... um, Ludwig, could you tell me more about what Larry was like when he was younger? I-I-I don't exactly remember all that much, come to think of it. Did you know that he would grow up to be such an all-around meanie?"

"Well, I know that this is hard to believe, but there was a time that he was innocent, docile, even adorable. Actually, at first he was a frail and sickly child. He failed to thrive, and didn't walk or talk until he was two years old. That was after I had stepped in and given him some much-needed medical attention. After that, he quickly caught up and became normal, even slightly ahead, in terms of development for his age. He became quite attached to me for a while... followed me everywhere, always in my hair... even LITERALLY. This I tolerated, for I had planned on making him my apprentice when he got older. He had such a clever and curious mind, he almost could have been another you..."

Iggy made one of his bizarre expressions that nobody could read. Nobody except Ludwig, who knew that this face was Iggy seething under the surface with jealousy at the thought that anyone, least of all Larry might ever have taken his place. "Go on..."

"However, King Father ruined him. He babied the child half to death, let him get away with tantrums and cowardice... it's understandable, given that Larry had up until then been suffering from a life-threatening illness, but by coddling him, he had done Larry a huge disservice. And he had also charged me with the responsibility of looking after you and Lemmy, being quite the special cases that you were, and since I had my hands full with that, Larry instead spent more time with Roy and Morton, trying to emulate them. Iggy, what's so funny?"

Iggy had started laughing at the moment that Ludwig mentioned Larry's tantrums. "I remember one time when King Dad took you, me, Lemmy and Larry to some scary old-fashioned barber shop called The Hair Saloon and they were playing some creepy old-fashioned country song about a burning fire on the radio and Larry was crying... he was all, 'I don't want a cowboy haircut!' AAAAHAHAHAHAhahahaha..."

Ludwig had to repress a shudder. His father's attempts to tame his mop top when he was a kooky youngster made for some traumatic childhood memories, and had even spurred the creation of Dr K's line of experimental hair care products to help him avoid the torture that was a hair brushing.

"Anyway, instead of striving to be brilliant and cultured like yours truly, Larry strived to be, well, like Roy and Morton. He wanted to be as tough as them, as 'cool' as them, as 'grown-up' as them... Larry started dating the same year that Roy went on his first date. If you ask me, Roy was too young to be seeing girls at that age, let alone Larry. He never could compete with his brothers athletically though... no strength, no stamina. You might say his childhood frailty still lingers in that sense."

"Pfft, no wonder he's such a little cheat! I remember how he used to make Lemmy cry by cheating at that dull candy game he used to play..."

"And King Father should never have permitted that." Ludwig sighed. "I should have known... he had such a fascination with shiny things such as Coins and jewelry from an early age, but I figured it was purely sentimental..."

"Well what are you waiting for? Put that helmet on I wanna see some nightmares! WAIT wait... uuum, since I made the Ghost of Christmas Past speak like the way people spoke in the past, you should make the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come speak like the way people speak in the yet to come... er, in the future! Make him speak Xingon - er, broken English in a Xingon accent like the X-Nauts in _Starship X-Naut!"_

Ludwig facepalmed. "Iggy, contrary to what Francis may have told you, Xingon is not a real language..."

_"Zax exla xa!" _Iggy said, crossing his arms and turning his nose up. He tittered, pleased that he actually knew a language that Ludwig didn't.

"Iggy, you remember my great-uncle Wolfgang, don't you?"

"Hrmm? Oh yeah, him! You're going to make the spirit talk like him!" Iggy was smiling one moment, and the next he gasped in terror.

"OH NO NOT HIM! He's SCARY! HE CAN'T EVEN SPEAK ENGLISH!"

"Iggy, stop. You're not scared of him, besides I know you know German. I taught you. And he's actually just starting to learn English-"

"JUST STARTING? GAAAAH HE'S TOO OLD-"

"Rubbish, one is never too old. I'm afraid he's stuck with the accent though..."

Ludwig had learned English at a very early age, so he could speak perfectly without a hint of accent. He was, however, quite capable of feigning an accent, as he did whenever he felt like being pompous or trolling his siblings.

...

HashtagTheGhostofChristmasYetToCome brought Larry back into his own bed. The Ghost of Christmas Present was finally gone, and with that realization came a rushing sense of relief. Larry felt as if his mind was finally actually coming awake from this crazy nightmare. He was vaguely aware of a lightning and thunderstorm rolling outside, but it seemed distant, almost comforting after the zaniness he experienced that night. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to be lulled into a sense of security...

"RISE AND SHINE HERR KOOPA! ES IST ZEIT TO AUFWACHEN!"

"AAAHH! AAAH! AH! Aahhh...aaaaw man, is this nightmare ever gonna end?" Larry whined. He pushed himself up from the bed with exaggerated difficulty, took his sweet time to yawn, and slowly opened his eyes while rubbing them excessively.

"End? Why, the nightmare has only just begonnen..." The visitor laughed an all-too-familiar laugh; a manic, bubbly, cackling sort of giggle that Larry had only heard from his brother Ludwig after he had drunken an ungodly amount of coffee and gotten himself into his "Kooky" mad-scientist mode.

Larry at last stopped rubbing his eyes and saw, in the flickering light of distant lightning flashes, that this visitor not only sounded like Kooky-mode Ludwig but looked exactly like him. The messed-up hair that took either hours in the salon or a spritz of Dr K's Posh Hair-in-a-Can to fix; the bloodshot eyeballs that looked like they were on the verge of popping out of his cranium, which itself looked under pressure from a brain so huge and still growing on the inside it could barely contain it; the twitching, from having a bloodstream so caffeinated that if a vampire had bitten him, said vampire would get Red Bull wings from just one sip of it.

"LUDWIG? NO... don't go all psycho on me..." Larry was somewhat frightened by his brother's suddenly broken English. Was he having a stroke or something?

"Ludwig? I bin nicht Ludwig, my dear, you seem zu be very much mistaken... woohoohooWOOOoooh, you might take me for a Doppelganger of your older Bruder, but I'm actually the Geist of Weihnachten Yet-To-Come!"

Thunder clapped as though in applause, and lightning flashed like a spotlight, bright as day. Larry ducked back under the blanket, his whimpering only stopping after his thumb was in his mouth.

The spirit tugged at the blanket. "Was are you doing, stop saugen your thumb and get out from under there, wir haven't got any time to lose! Well, actually, come to think of it, wir haben all the time in die WELT to lose! WOOhoohoo, we can skip back and forth from Jahr zu Jahr all we like! Such is meine Begabung... woohoo, how about we pay a little besuchen, say, zu Christmas of next year?"

"N-next year?" Larry gulped.

"You're not frightened, are Sie?"

"F-frightened? Who's frightened? Not me! I... I-I'm just a little bit... overwhelmed at the prospect of seeing how g-g-GREAT my future is going to be, yeah, see I've got a couple of awesomely foolproof schemes going for a New Year's resolution, so by the end of next year I expect to be a rich Koopa, a VERY rich Koopa."

Meanwhile the spirit had yanked Larry's clock out of the wall. He took out some tools and opened it up, took things out, added things in, did some very noisy things with one tool and some very sparky things with another, and, with cackling that was as maniacal as it was manic, raised the contraption in triumph.

"WOO! HOO HOO! I BIN SOOOO SUPERKLUG! Here, here, let's take it for a spin, shall we?"

The spirit wrapped the cord of the thing he invented out of Larry's clock around his and Larry's body and closed the loop by plugging the end of the cord into the back of the clock. He set the alarm to go off exactly one year later and pressed the year button once to change the year up by one.

The alarm went off. "I'M SO FANCY..."

"ACH! Mein apologies, that was the wrong station..." The spirit grumbled to himself, "keep your claws off dem Gerät Ignatius..."

He twisted the radio dial until they were warped out of that time and place.

Larry blinked, dazed, half-expecting to have waken out of this dream at that point. But he was still tied to the machine with this spirit, only now he was not in his room or even the castle, but inside a flashy stadium with winding racetracks and glowing billboards and rave music blaring.

"WOOHOOHOO! I did it! We're here, Larry, in the Zukunft! Aren't I SUPERKLUG!"

"Yeah yeah you're Super Glue. Holy rollers, this seems like my kind of place!" The place was crowded with ravers and their electric hairdos and glowy sticks, and it smelled of E-cigarettes and menthol and clove oil. There was a DJ making squeaky sounds with the vinyl disks on the turntables, and it was none other future Larry.

Future Larry was dressed in a jacket studded with jewels and glittering gold dust, designer jeans, expensive shoes, and a T-shirt that he likely paid fifty or more coins for. He wore a gold bling necklace with dollar symbol, pound symbol and Euro symbol shapes dangling from it, a designer pair of futuristic-looking sunglasses, flashy light-up gloves, and he had a pair of extra, golden fangs to replace the ones that present Larry had recently lost. Like a lot of the ravers present, he was also sucking on a pacifier, but his was golden and studded with diamonds.

Future Larry removed the pacifier, waved his glowy hands in the air and shouted, "SO WHOSE LIGHTS ARE THESE?"

"LARRY'S!" shouted the crowd.

"WHO OWNS THIS ELECTRODROME?"

"LARRY!"

"I CAN'T HEAR YOU!

"LARRY! LARRY! LARRY! LARRY!" the crowd chanted, clearing away as future Larry made his way to the dance floor. Future Larry jumped on the colorful light up tiles that made musical beats every time they were stepped on, dancing out a tune that was perfectly in rhythm with the trance fusion music in the background.

"NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL A SICK BEAT YO!" Future Larry leaped up and landed on the back of his shell and spun around.

"LARRY! LARRY!" the crowd continued to chant while he breakdanced and made more sick beats on the musical floor. He crawled on over to some girls who lifted him up and passed him to the ravers behind them.

"SWEEEEEET! I'm crowd surfing!" said Larry as he watched his future self riding the audience like a rock star. A helicopter with Larry's face on it was waiting at the back edge of the crowd, and future Larry hopped up onto the ladder dangling from it after they brought him all the way over there.

"This Koopa's gotta fly the koop now, but he'll be back tomorrow night, and again on New Year's Eve! Have a VERY LARRY CHRISTMAS!"

"Hot dog! I can't wait to see what kind of hilltop mansion I'm living in! I hope it's Corona Mountain on Isle Delfino."

"Woohoo let's see..." the spirit tuned the knob until it placed their surroundings in Delfino Plaza. Larry saw his future self's helicopter fly up to the cave at the top of Corona Mountain.

The spirit tuned the knob again to transport them into the penthouse inside the volcano. While it still carried the cozy glow of magma that Larry had grown up with in Kastle Koopa, it had far more the multimillionaire club vibe than Kastle Koopa ever had. The living room was a humongous flat-screen plasma TV connected to every video game system known to Koopakind, and some shelves completely loaded with CDs, DVDs, and magazines. Humongous and excessively flattering portraits of Larry covered the igneous stone walls, with some of Larry's favorite Playkoopa centerfolds pinned up next to them. The bathroom had a gold-plated toilet seat and lid and, even more astoundingly, functional plumbing.

Future Larry sat down to watch the big television - not on a couch, but in an enormous jacuzzi, with bills sticking out of the frothy bubbles and piles of coins at the bottom for those that dare to go snorkeling in the heat. A couple of bronzed bathing beauties in bikinis, a brunette and a blonde, were waiting, having already warmed it up for him.

Future Larry grabbed the brunette's head and kissed her on the cheek. "Mary Jane, baby, were your parents bankers? Cause you look like a million Coins." He turned around and did likewise to the blonde. "Molly, babe, if you were money, you'd be a dime, cause you're a ten."

"So what would you like to drink, sir?" asked another blonde in a cute little maid outfit.

"A triple martini on the rocks. No olives. Oh and by the way, Coco," future Larry added before she could run off, "that outfit really flatters your figure." Future Larry winked and smiled that smile that some women found cute and others found creepy.

The women in the hot tub with him giggled and petted him.

"Ah, Addie, so good to see you" future Larry said to a redhead in a tight little business outfit who was coming up to the jacuzzi with a clipboard. "How's my movie deal coming along?"

"They still haven't gotten back to me about that, Mister Koopa, but I've got great news. I've managed to schedule you a meeting with a major modeling agency. This is a great opportunity to sell your brand, Mister Koopa. What type of image exactly are we trying to sell here?"

Coco had just gotten back with future Larry's martini. "HellOOO, Addie, get with the program! The image I'm trying to project here is your classic James Bean daydreamy type dude. Reckless, a daredevil, but dripping with charisma not to mention cash. Above all, a bad boy. That type of thing makes the ladies swoon. Make sure they hire a photographer that knows how to capture that. Oh, and a few shots of my hair billowing beside a fan are a MUST. Remember, babe, I'm an icon. And my hair is the reason why."

"Very well..." Addie scribbled some more stuff on the clipboard. "Oh and your hot oil massage has been scheduled for around ten thirty this morning, and the doctor should be getting back to you with the results of last week's physical later today. But right about now, you are scheduled to open presents."

"Sweet. Oh and by the way Addie, next time, please ditch the kitten heels and go with stilettos."

Future Larry reached outside of the jacuzzi for his keys and pressed the button on the electronic lock. The skylight at the end of the pipe on the ceiling opened up, letting in the sound of more helicopter noise. A crate wrapped up like a present box was lowered down the pipe, followed by a few others. All of them were labeled with a tag that said "To: Larry From: Larry".

Future Larry pulled the ribbon off the first crate and stood back as the paper and the sides of the crate fell off, spilling packing peanuts everywhere. It was a crystal statue of Larry, but more muscly and heroic-looking than in real life. He also received a tennis ball shooting machine, a Flame Rider racing bike, a crate carrying what seemed to be a store's entire inventory of high-end tennis racquets, and, which seemed to excite him most of all, a crate full of jewels and assorted golden coins. Future Larry yelped in delight and jumped into the pile of coins that spilled out, even still wet from the jacuzzi, and made a snow angel in the coin pile.

"Holy Batman, is my future bright or what? I think I'm gonna have to steal Roy's shades." Larry's tail was wagging, and the cash symbols were practically visible in his eyes, as were the hearts flying over his head.

"Aber it strikes me as rather peculiar that deine Familie is not at all present to celebrate. Are you not at all concerned about your Geschwister?"

"My... what? My sister?"

"And your Brüder."

"My... Oh yeah. Them. You know what was weird? I was having the rave of a lifetime, but Roy and Mort weren't there. Eh, not that I could see, anyway..."

"So let's pay them a Besuch now, warum nicht?" The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come cackled darkly and twisted the knob again.


	11. Christmas Future 2point0

**Boo Boo the Beanish girl, Jerry the crippled Magikoopa, and Shelly, the pink-haired Koopa girl with the fine sense of etiquette, all belong to my brilliant friend Treacle Parcheesi, or EdieMammon as she's called on deviantART. These characters are featured in her story Iggy's Poison, along with a few other, canon characters, in a group known unofficially as the "Sallow Gang". I highly recommend her work, both on FF and dA if you're into dark tales full of madness, poison and twisted plots. She has borrowed my character Wolfgang for much of her work, and her portrayal of him has been inspiration for my portrayal of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come in this chapter and the previous. **

**And to answer that one reviewer, no I'm not done with Born to be King yet. I will update after I get finished with this, I just can't work on more than one story at a time. Enjoy!**

Cackling amidst a lightning flash and thunder crash, spirit transported Larry out of his ritzy future penthouse. The place where he was now was such a stark contrast that Larry half-gasped in shock from it.

It was a sterile, white room, chilled to a dental clinic's waiting room temperature, which had utility in rendering cold-blooded inhabitants - indeed, even warm-blooded inhabitants - downright sluggish. Said inhabitants, dressed in nightgowns and hospital bracelets, were indeed sluggish, if not catatonic. The floor was tiled black and white, meticulously cleaned with substances that gave it an unsettling doctor's office smell that failed to cover up but rather mingled with the indescribable foul characteristic odor of the place. There was a glass door but it was locked, and there was nothing on the other side but a small grass yard and a brick wall so high one of Larry's height could not see the sky without stepping outside and leaning their head way back. Inside there were a few cafeteria tables with those rotating seats that don't rotate through nearly enough degrees to be any fun to spin in, some chairs that looked like they were supposed to be armchairs but were too hard and plastic to be of any comfort, a limited selection of the most boring magazines, a trash can filled with little white paper cups and food items that made Larry nervous about the dining options at this place; numbered doors that contained bedrooms, a glass window through which people dressed in nursing outfits could be seen between a pair of doors that were also locked, and a payphone on which one could call any number, collect or not for free.

Never trust a free payphone...

"WHERE ARE WE?" Larry asked, his voice cracking with whininess. He ducked slightly into his shell and brought his thumb near his mouth.

"WOO! HOO HOO! WAA! HA HAA! So we have hier a first-timer! Welcome to the _Narrenturm_!"

"The WHAT?!"

"Ah, that's just an old-fashioned name for the type of _Spital_ where _Menschen_ go when they are a little bit krank in the Kopf. Oi, is das your Bruder?"

Larry heard the same voice cackling behind him. He turned around and saw Ludwig, laughing and quaking almost uncontrollably, the only animated thing in this room. His hair looked as though he hadn't seen a shower in a month - and if the plumbing here were like the air conditioning, Larry thought, he couldn't blame him - he had one pupil that was dilated to an unnatural hugeness, the other shrunken to a frightfully tiny pinprick, and a string of saliva was dangling from his mouth, along with his serpentlike tongue. He was pacing back and forth behind a row of patients, all of them either stiff, quavering or wheelchair-bound.

He grabbed one of them, a Koopa Troopa girl with blonde hair and black X marks on her temples and pushed her a distance of about two floor tiles. She was waxy flexible, and Ludwig had fun playing with her limbs for a bit, posing her in various ballet positions while giggling like a madman before he finally settled for an arabesque.

He ran to the other side of the room, this time giggling in a different, but no less manic or frightening manner. He styled his hair up into a blue palm tree, put a pair of glasses on his face and laughed louder, in a way that Larry now realized sounded a lot like...

"Iggy?! Whoa, he's double nuts now!"

"Iggy" made jerky, Iggy-like motions as he paced back and forth, going "Hrrrmmmmmm... AHA!"

He pointed at another Koopa Troopa girl, one with pink hair holding a milk carton. She paced back and forth in small circles over a black tile, repeatedly asking "May we please have some juice? May we please have some juice?" until she was gently prodded to step on over to a white tile, and then onto the black tile directly in front of the blonde Koopa Troopa.

The spirit giggled. "Oi, looks like he's going for the _Wien-Spiel_! WOOHOOHOO, I hope he plays the Frankenstein and Dracula!" Larry could only stare and laugh weakly.

"Iggy" ran back to the other side of the room and then he was Ludwig again. He rubbed his chin, trying to look thoughtful despite the permanent crazedness that his face was twisted into.

"YOU!" He pointed at a tall Beanish girl wearing a pink little girl's dress over her hospital nightgown. "GET BACK ON D ONE!"

Trembling, the Beanish girl did as she was told. Ludwig then picked out a young Magikoopa who was in crutches.

Ludwig grabbed his shoulder and barked "GO TO C THREE!"

"Uuuuuuhhh... w-w-w-w-which one is th-th-th-th-thaaaat?" the Magikoopa asked, shaking despite his lameness.

Ludwig facepalmed. "THAT ONE!" He pointed at the tile just to the left of the one two tiles ahead of the Magikoopa.

"Bu-bu-bu-bu-butbutbutbut it's BLAAAAAACK! I can't step on the blaaaaaack ones! They're pooooiiison!" He was starting to tear up as he spoke.

"YOU-WILL DO-AS YOU ARE TOLD JERRY..." Ludwig seized the Magikoopa and shoved him ahead. "...OR YOU WILL BE BACK IN THE WHEELCHAIR, I'll MAKE SURE OF IT!" Jerry cried both at being roughhoused and being forced to stand on the black.

The locked doors burst open and a couple of Sledge Bros seized Ludwig and restrained him, until one of the nurses brought over a syringe and, as soon as he fell limp, dressed him in a straitjacket. Ludwig was then carried away, still laughing albeit in a slurred manner.

Larry gulped, too fearful to ask where he was being taken away to; what Hell was worse than this. "Daaaaang... welp, that proves it. Dude's nut has finally cracked."

"Indeed, it is without a doubt that the _Kräuterschatz_ has indeed slid off of his cracker, aber that happened a much longer time ago than you might think. Using Menschen as though they were _Schachfiguren_, is that not exactly what he does when he is out of the _Krankenhaus_?"

"Gaaaah learn how to speak English you kooky kraut! Hey, where was Iggy anyway? Isn't he the one who usually can't hide his madness well enough to be sent to these kinds of places?"

"Eeeeeehhh... you'll find out later. How about we go to the general _Spital_ to see your Brüder Roy und Lemmy!"

And they were suddenly in another hospital. Larry saw Roy, hooked up to a bunch of tubes and IV fluid, being monitored by a bunch of Nurse Guys. But if not for the sunglasses, he would not have recognized Roy at all. Roy's once thick muscles were wasted away, his scales looked dull, his claws brittle, and he looked like he was going to throw up.

"Roy? Is that him? What happened... What the..."

"Ach, _Chemotherapie_ will do that to Sie."

"CHEMO?! You're telling me Roy's on CHEMO?! But... but he's too young to get cancer!"

"Alas, you have _vergessen_, these days there is no such thing as zu young to get cancer. The odds of being diagnosed with _Krebsgeschwür _at a jungen age are going up every year, und will sicher be greater by this time in the year yet to come. If the odds continue to progress at this rate, by the Jahr 2020 they fill be diagnosing more Kinder in diese Welt with cancer than with _der Autismus!_ WOOHOOHOO it certainly didn't help your Bruder's odds that he smokes like ein_ Rauchfang_..."

Larry watched, as the last of the pink-red fluid drained out of the sack and into Roy, and when he afterwards stumbled over to dry-heave in the sink and, wheezing, passed out on the floor.

"Well, I don't think it's funny... but... but at least he doesn't have to worry about his hair falling out, hehe, since he doesn't have any in the... first... place..."

"WAHOOHOOHAA, WOOHOO! Trust me, Herr Koopa, when you are dancing with _der rote Teufel _in your _Venen_, the state of your hair will be the least of your worries."

"So, um, how about Lemmy? You said he was here too?"

"Well, if you thought Roy was out of breath, I has something to show you. _Komm schon_!"

Larry was shown into the next room, which contained a massive metal machine - an iron lung -with a tiny body inside.

"Lemmy...?" Larry saw Lemmy lying down through a glass window in the machine, his eyes closed, his body being blown flat by the wind in the machine with every forced inhalation, followed by a forced exhalation that nearly sucked his body upward.

"Lemmy has suffered viele complications as a result of that Unfall that he had on das Eis. He came down with a severe case of die Lungenentzündung, followed by die Grippe which eventually led to die Kruppe. Weil Ludwig was nicht around any mehr to cook up ein Heilmittel for these conditions, Lemmy's state of health got progressively schlimmer, so that by the time next winter came along, his poor little Lunge just couldn't hold up like they used to after he had another Unfall, and it did not take very long at all for him to bekommen völlig hirngeschädigt. The Lemmy you see here in dieses eiserne Lunge, I'm afraid, is ein Gemüse, with no hope of recovering back to the Lemmy you once knew. If you ask me, they may as well just pull the plug on him, but your dear Vati just won't have that..."

Larry was curled up in a ball on his side, whispering things to himself while shaking and breathing hoarsely.

"Komm Herr Koopa. Es is zeit to pay your dear Schwester a visit now."

Larry covered his eyes as the spirit transported him out of the hospital and whimpered in gibberish. He was not looking forward to seeing what tragedy had befallen his sister, if it followed the pattern he was being shown here.

"Uncover your Augen and look!"

Larry stretched to fingers apart to take a peek. It was Kastle Koopa's bathroom, and it looked much the same as before. Wendy was in the tub, and had not bothered to close the shower curtain.

"Aaaww man, I'm getting the peep show of a lifetime here and it just HAD to be my sister. Why, just why?"

Wendy lay as though languished in the bubble bath, as she must have been for over an hour, for the water was lukewarm rather than steaming, and only a few sudsy islets remained of the mountain of bubbles that she must have made while the water was running. She had one hand on a wineglass and another on her belly.

"Daaaaaang… Wendy sure let herself go!" Larry began to laugh a bit. "Now she's a baldie AND a fattie, just like Roy… at least before he… never mind."

"Ach, nein, nein, you've got it all wrong Herr Koopa. Sie ist not FAT, you müssen observe more closely…"

After catching on to the dark hint in the spirit's tone, Larry immediately saw that the spirit was right. While Wendy was certainly larger than she had been the year previous, most of the weight she had gained was concentrated in the abdominal region. She rubbed her hand over every contour of the bulge rising through her plastron, which was not of loose and jiggly folds of fat, but rather the kind of tautness that only the belly of a gravid Koopa female can have.

"SHE'S… SHE'S HAVING AN EGG! DAAAAAANG…. what's King Dad gonna think of this? Who's the father… eh, where's the father?"

"To the best of my knowledge, the Vater did zu her exactly what you had done to your fancy lady of Christmas past. Took off with someone else and left her with ein gebrochenes heart, and in Wendy's case, a euzal extra."

"Well, that's her fault if she doesn't know how to pick better guys or not let them ingravidate her."

"Ach, but it is the boy's fault also, and yet sie is the one who pays the full Preis. As much as I hasse to agree mit HashtagPrivilegeShamingPCNaziBumblrFeministOfWinterSolsticeHolidaysPresent on something, das ist one matter on which males are unbestreitbar more privilegiert than females."

"Yeah I guess… but after Ludwig and Roy and Lemmy, I was expecting her to be a lot… worse off."

"Woohoo, so you want worse off, gell? Then let's visit Morton!"

The machine thundered and lightning-ed them out of the castle and into a building that had a similarly oppressive and institutionalized atmosphere as the psych ward that Ludwig was at, but this time Larry was familiar with it.

"OH no… Mort's in JUVEY?" Larry stood in the hallway and looked back and forth at the rows of barred cages full of young prisoners, almost all of them large enough to eat him alive. Including Morton, now larger and tougher than ever. At least there's that one good thing about prison life, Larry thought, although he had never been in juvenile hall for very long before Bowser bailed him out.

"Uuuhhh, how long is he in for?"

"WOOhoohoo, just listen, Morton will be sehr glücklich to say everything…"

"Morton, you've got a new roommate now." A Lakitu prison warden opened Morton's cell and dragged in a Boom Boom on handcuffs.

"Hiya, I'm Prince Morton Koopa Junior, but you can call me Morton, or Mort, or Morty, whichever you prefer. What's your name and what are you in for?"

"Uuum, my name's Boomer, and I'm in for… impersonating a pharmacist and purposely filling the wrong prescriptions for certain people…"

"What, ya gotta hit list? HAHA…"

"Something like that, you might say I was hired to do somebody else's dirty deeds. What are you in for?"

"I'm in for giving away free chocolate bars that I was supposed to be selling for charity!"

"What? How much time are you getting for that?"

"Eh, I already worked that fine off, but as soon as I did, I got framed for MURDER! I've been waiting here for my juvenile court date for nearly a YEAR, and if they rule me guilty, which I'm pretty sure they will cause they got the jury PACKED, then after I've come the age of majority they're gonna lock me up in the big house for grownups for LIFE!"

"Man, that sounds harsh. Who framed you?"

"I used to call that little jerk my brother, but as far as I'm concerned now, he's no brother of mine! Grrrr if I ever get outta here I'm gonna LITERALLY smash his shell to pieces and throw them out into a volcano! Either way, hehe, he'll get his. Karma's got a funny way of working like that-"

"HUSH AND GO TO BED!" shouted the warden.

"Uh, spirit? Exactly which brother of his got him locked up here anyway…?"

"Hm, my guess would be dass the Bruder who did it would have to have had a reason to keep Morton's big mouth behind bars, or a good deal of stock invested in Wissenblag, since he so happens to be privy to some of their deep dark dirty secrets?"

"Ehehe… but who got murdered?"

"Nobody got murdered, Herr Koopa. It was ein Selbstmord. Which brings uns to Iggy..."

Larry was transported back to Kastle Koopa, this time to Iggy's and Lemmy's bedroom. Except that there were no longer beds in this bedroom, and Larry only knew it was their bedroom because of the fuzzy snowman stickers that Lemmy left on the window. Also left on the window were Iggy's glasses and a bouquet of Fire and Ice Flowers left as though on a cemetary gravestone.

"Did he… really… but…b-but WHY?"

"You do remember that you tattled on him for opening up his Videospiel, and that he had it taken away as punishment, gell? Do you see what you did there? You have a person who is geisteskrank to begin with, and you take away the one measure of stability he has in his instabil life. That might have been bearable for a person of gesund mind, but for a verrückt mind such as his, it can be the end of the Welt. He hatte swallowed an Überdosis of the Gift he had received as a gift and for good measure he ran and leaped out of diese window…"

"He… didn't…" Larry's breath rattled as he peered through the window at the moat on the bottom. If the mutant Piranha Cheeps didn't finish him, the poison would…

"It's King Dad's fault", Larry said, trying as hard as he could to speak with conviction, through a throat that was tightening with anguish. "He… shouldn't have been… such a… jerk… but… but if Iggy would kick the bucket over this, then there was nothing anybody could do about it from the start, he's hopeless. There's no use showing me how broken up my family's gonna be, I mean it sucks but there ain't much I can do about it you know, I don't want to let it ruin MY glorious future… now can we get back to my Delfino Isle penthouse and see more of future ME having a great time?"

"In der Tat, Herr Koopa, that is our next stop on the Agenda." The spirit seemed wryly pleased about this, but Larry couldn't tell if that wasn't perhaps just a permanent expression set into his demented face, as it sometimes seemed when Ludwig was in a state of madness.

"I muss remark, Herr Koopa, it's quite remarkable that you have nicht shed a single Träne."

Indeed, Larry's face was quite dry. But only because he had made such a grand effort to keep it so. He closed his eyes and screamed in earsplitting silence.


	12. Christmas Future 3point0

"Soooo, Iggy…." Ludwig snickered. "Are you not TERRIFIED?"

Iggy sat frozen still, not even budging to push his glasses up as they slid down his face the entire time he was watching the dream sequence.

"N-n-n-n-nerrrrrr, nnnnot at aaaaalll…" Iggy gulped through repressed trembling. He then fell to Ludwig's feet and clutched his arms around them.

"A-A-AAAAALLL RIIIIGHT! I ADMIT IT! Tha-tha-that was the scariest m-m-movie I-I-I-I have ever… gulp… seen. So brilliant, b-bu-but so horrible! Seeing Lemmy like that… and I…. would I… would I really do such a thing?"

The corners of Ludwig's mouth twisted into a smug grin. "Now now, Ignatius, do you really want the honest-to-badness truth on that matter? In all probability, knowing how you get when you are in that special state of mind, you would – and could – do just about anything – and everything – were you able to get away with it. So, are you prepared to watch the final act?"

Iggy nodded. "Bu-but first, tell me… eh, how will it end?"

"Woohoohoo… oh, just like every other great horror movie."

"Ohhhh, so you mean the mad scientist is gonna die trying to kill the monster and the monster is gonna get burnt to death?"

"No, Iggy, that was Frankenstein."

"Oh, hrrmmm… so the monster's gonna get stabbed to death and then his victims are all gonna go back to normal?"

"No, Iggy, that was Dracula."

"Eeeehhh… OOH! I KNOW! Butterscotch goes first, and then they send their horses off to die, and after that it's really boring until the Queen of chocolate pudding slays King Butterscotch! Waitaminute what am I thinking THAT wasn't a horror movie!"

Ludwig rolled his eyes. "And so what is the common thread among the plots of the aforementioned horror movies?"

"Eeeeerrr…. The monster dies?"

"Bingo."

"BINGO! I DON'T WANNA PLAY BINGO! That's a boring game for old ladies that are too milquetoast for REAL gambling!"

"Silence, Iggy." Ludwig reached into his shell to take out a flask full of cold-brew coffee. He tried to do it in a surreptitious manner, but Iggy caught him.

"HEY YOU GOT COFFEE?! I WANT COFFEE!"

"Not my Kyoto style slow-drip cold-brewed fair trade organic 100 percent Corona Mountain city roast!"

"J-just a dropperful?" Iggy happened to have an eyedropper in his shell.

Ludwig reluctantly allowed him to take a few drops. Iggy smacked and licked his lips, then frowned in disapproval.

"Needs SUGAR!"

"Ugh. Iggy, GOOD Kaffee does not require sugar."

"This from the guy who dumps thirteen turbinado packets into his Shellbucks?"

"It's Shellbucks. Enough said."

"I think Shellbucks tastes just fine."

Ludwig sneered as he took another sip. "You would."

"But that gingerbread latte was HOURS ago, I need something NOW to sip on... preferably something caffeine-y!" Iggy looked through Larry's minifridge and found, amongst all the little cartons of milk and juice, a can of Monster energy drink.

"Now that's what I'm talking about!" He popped it open and inserted his favorite glow-in-the-dark twisty straw, which he also just happened to be keeping in his shell. He had made it himself, incorporating fluorescent green proteins into the plastic structure.

"I hope you intend on paying Larry back after he finds out you stole from his refrigerator."

"I hope you do a good enough job at scaring him straight that he's no longer a prick enough to care if his brother steals from his refrigerator."

"Touché." Ludwig raised his flask. "Here's to hoping that this nightmare is as frightening to him as it is to you."

"You mean MORE frightening."

"Woo hoo hoo, _natürlich_."

Iggy toasted him back with his Monster can, and Ludwig put the helmet back on.

...

Larry let out a sigh as he returned to his future self's ritzy abode, relieved that he was no longer being confronted by his siblings' misfortune.

"So you are liking how things turn out for you in the Christmas _noch kommen_?" The spirit had changed from resembling Kooky to resembling his great-uncle Wolfgang sometime over the course of the dream sequence, but Larry's dream state mind had not noticed. "More Geld than you know what to do with, your own Haus, you can throw the biggest Fest in town and einen Karl machen every Nacht if you like, and judging by the symptoms, one too many _Schwammerl _for your own good but you enjoy that _gell_?"

Future Larry was being massaged while his employees Coco, Addie, and playmates Mary Jane and Molly opened their presents.

"Wow, a ten Coin raise! Thank you Larry!" said Coco.

Addie nodded. "That's almost enough to cover my bus fare here and back!"

"Think nothing of it, ladies. Hehehe..." Future Larry squinted in pleasure as his masseuse, another exotic blonde lady, applied pressure to his shoulder blades. "Just a little lower, Crystal..."

Addie stepped forward, holding an open newspaper. "Back to work. Good news sir - all of your stocks have risen. Wissenblag is up 15 percent, Barbarian Cream Productions is up 12, and Schweet Games is only up 0.3, but at least it's not going down like it was last quarter."

"Good, good. Now what's my horoscope?"

Addie turned the page of the newspaper. "Aries, right? It says: You have been working extremely hard all year long, and you have been reaping many rewards from your efforts. However, your interpersonal relationships have suffered as a result, so this holiday season you should make it a priority to catch up with friends and family. You never know when you might need them, or what for."

Future Larry laughed. "Me. Need them? Please. Lud's in the funny farm, Roy's sick as a dog on chemo, Lem's a vegetable, Wendy's gonna be a teen mom, Mort's in the slammer, and as for Pops... whoa, looks like I'm the only kid still eligible to be heir, hehe, so the sooner he croaks the better. For ME, of course. Oh... to the left there, Crystal."

Addie's smartphone rang. "Hello? Yes this is his secretary. Just one moment... Larry, it's the doctor."

"Put him on speaker."

Addie turned on the speakerphone setting.

"Heya, doc." said future Larry.

"Good morning, Mister eh... Koopa. I've just gotten back the results of your blood work and your biopsy. Now about that wart that you were worried about..."

"It's just a mosquito bite, right?" Future Larry got off the massage table, kissed Crystal on both cheeks, slipped back into his shell and hopped back in the hot tub with Molly and Mary Jane.

"Ehem, no. The biopsy shows the DNA signature of a particular subtype of Koopapapilloma virus; based on that and your bloodwork, which contains extremely elevated levels of mesothelin and other telltale peptides, you have been diagnosed with a metastatic urogenital Koopapapillocarcinoma."

"A Koopaparazzo what?"

"To put it bluntly, you have cancer."

"I have-WHAT?!" Both Larrys screamed simultaneously at this announcement.

"There... there must be some mistake, doc, see I eat all organic, I get plenty of exercise, I abstain for the most part from tobacco, I'm only a social drinker hehe I'm a freaking TEENAGER, I mean, heh, what are the odds?"

"None of that matters Mister Koopa, this cancer is caused by a virus, and there is only ONE WAY to catch THAT particular virus." The doctor's tone turned patronizing and accusatory. "YOU know what you're doing wrong, Mister Koopa."

Mary Jane and Molly left the hot tub in apparent disgust.

"Ladies? C'mon... eh, doc? This cancer is easy to treat, right? You can just cut it off real quick?"

"I'm afraid not, Mister Koopa. The cancer has progressed too far, as I have told you; it's _metastatic_."

"But doc, I don't even feel sick. I feel perfectly fine, I mean, if it's that far along shouldn't I FEEL like I'm dying?"

"OF COURSE you don't feel anything, Mister Koopa. Based on the levels of metabolites from certain substances that I also found from doing your blood work, I'm surprised you can even speak coherently. Now, I'm sorry to say this, but you are going to need more than simple surgery."

"You mean..." Future Larry said in a choked gasp. "CHEMO?"

"Well, THAT is a given, Mister Koopa."

"But I... my hair... I don't... doc... I don't wanna lose my HAIR! Anything but my hair..."

"Your hair or your life, Mister Koopa. You have three months to live if you don't accept treatment."

"Doc, doc, DOC, hehe c'mon now doc... hahahahaha doc, LOOK. I'm a baZILLIONAIRE. You know what I'm talking about. Just name your price, any price, and I will pay it. _CAPISCE_?"

"I'm not hiding the cure, Mister Koopa. If you don't believe me, then why don't you fire me and consult one of those tin-foil holistic naturopath homeopathic woo-woo quack doctors?"

Future Larry screamed and cursed, shaking his fists and getting a few bubbles on Addie. "Hang it up, Addie, and get my acupuncturist Hera on the line asap! Maybe she can figure out where my _qi_ is being blocked... OH WAIT EVEN BETTER!"

Larry got out of the tub, briefly wiped off with the massage towel and grabbed the phone.

"Hello operator? I would like you to put me on the line with Fanny Fritzges Asylum for the Incurably Insane. I would like to speak with the director…"

Larry waited until he heard the meek voice of the director say "Hello" on the other line.

"Put yourself on video chat fool! I want to speak with my brother face to face."

The director's face appeared. He was a Koopa Troopa with his head half inside his shell. "Aa-and who would your brother be, sir?"

"Ludwig von Koopa, aka Kooky, aka the craziest guy there you've got."

"Oh, h-h-him." The Troopa turned the phone around to show a padded whiteroom behind glass, with a familiar blue-haired lunatic wriggling around in a straitjacket.

"Eh, hi, Ludwig, heheh…"

Ludwig stood up and raised his head in interest. "Larry? WAHAHA is that really you? Fancy hearing from you, of all people… on CHRISTMAS, no less! WOOHOOHOOhoohoo, FANCY THAT!"

"Eh, heheheh, merry Christmas…" Larry said sheepishly, knowing that he would have to play it nice for the huge favor he was about to ask. "Sorry for not returning your free payphone calls, or sending you a gift, or coming to see your Asylum for Wayward Baroque Boys musical…. Hehe, you know how busy it gets, being a bazillionaire playboy and all…"

"WAAHOOHOOHAA quit beating around the bush. You are in quite sudden need of my GENIUS, aren't you?"

"Uhhhh huhyeah, see, um… you've discovered a cure for cancer, right? One that doesn't make your hair fall out?"

"WHAT? Am I hearing this right?" Ludwig's face twisted with evil pleasure as he hopped onto one leg and tried to stand in arabesque position without having arms out for balance. "My ickle brother, the big shot tycoon, has got CANCER?"

"Eeeeep….yeseheh…"

Kooky giggled while dancing around like a toddler in footsie jammies until his lack of arms caused him to teeter over and fall on his tummy. He rolled onto his back, his head still twisted upside down, looking strangely catlike.

"WOOHOOHOO! That's RICH! My brother, after stabbing me in the back, driving me LITERALLY mad, destroying my graduate school career, landing me in the nuthouse, and seeing to it that I will never get out, all of a sudden wants ME to cure HIM! WOOHOOHOO after investing in the very company whose vested interest is in keeping my cures OFF the market! ISN'T THAT RICH?! WOOHOOHOOWAAHAHAAA!"

"Yeah, woohoo it's hilarious. So are you gonna do it? Please… I-I-I BEG of you… I… I'll grovel at your feet! I'm not too proud to grovel..."

Ludwig's face lit up in ecstasy at the prospect of Larry groveling at his feet. "WAAHAAHAA, now that's something I'd very much love to see. But shouldn't groveling be beneath you, oh Mister Moneybags?"

"All right, I'll-I'll do anything… I'll bail you out of that nut joint, just PLEASE HELP ME! I DON'T WANNA LOSE MY HAIR!"

"WAAHAAhaaa, now, I really shouldn't divulge any of my secrets, especially not to YOU of all people, but the showoffy genius in me simply cannot resist! Remember that Cannibal Sativa plant I created?"

"Oh yeah, that Frankenherb. It ate all of my Lil' Nippers! And even some of my Munchers!"

"Now, the secret is this: You must feed it nothing but Munchers for about a month or so. The Munchers will give it indigestion at first, but eventually the plant will epigenetically evolve a tolerance and its digestive sap will become tarry, with a distinctive odor. THAT is your cure. One hundred percent rate of full remission within a month for almost every type of cancer, ten year survival rate still pending, but so far none of the test subjects have relapsed; no effect on noncancerous cells, no nausea, no hair loss. WOOhoohoo too bad it's USELESS in anyone's hands except mine!"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, I wouldn't try to use it on myself if I were you. It's utterly useless, in fact even quite deadly if administered incorrectly. It would take you years of medical school to learn the proper technique, that is, if they actually taught it in medical schools but they don't, and I don't need to tell you why they don't. Woohoohoo."

"In that case… how about I bail you out so you can treat me with it? Please? Your freedom for my cure? Is that not a sweet deal or what?"

"WOOHOOHOOOOOooooOOO!" Ludwig laughed convulsively, screaming and shaking and surely worrying the director that he was having a seizure. "Hmmmm, that is one tempting offer… buuuuut, I'm afraid I shall have to decline."

"WHAAAAT?! WHY!? HOW COULD YOU… ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR…" But it was all too obvious that his elder brother was.

"WOOhoohoo quite so, my dear brother, quite so. I have grown rather accustomed to my current living arrangement. No worries, no stress, no danger of Wissenblag mercenaries coming to bump me off woohoo… I get three healthful meals a day, plenty of PAWNS to play with, and whenever I'm having a bad day, I get to snuggle down in a cozy _Zugzwangsjacke_."

"Kooky… Lud… listen to yourself. Don't you miss having freedom? Don't you miss going to school? Inventing stuff? Playing piano?"

"What are you talking about? I play Mister Piano every week on Mondays and Wednesdays at fourteen hundred hours during eighty minute long therapy sessions. Woohoo, I will have to get back to that cavalier clavier about the money he owes me… Say, what kind of cancer do you have anyway? Maybe I can suggest another viable alternative?"

Future Larry proceeded to tell him the full disgusting details of his Koopapapilloma virus-induced cancer.

"WOOHOOHOO doesn't that serve you right or what! KPV, of course YOU would catch that, you filthy cad, you! THAT'S RICH I TELL YOU! RICH! WOOHOOHOOHAHOOO… eh, sounds like you're pretty much a goner without treatment. Your only shot without one of MY patent pending cures, I'm afraid, is to take whatever poisons the doctor gives you."

"BUT.. but… MY HAIR! My life, my career is OVER WITHOUT MY HAIR!"

"Oh, pish posh, your hair will grow back. Woohoo PROBABLY… BUT YOUR TELOMERES WON'T!"

"My tele-what?! AAARRGH THIS IS HOPELESS!" Future Larry shut off the phone and threw it in the jacuzzi. "Dude's a kook anyway. Curing cancer with GMO piranha plant spit, what is he thinking?"

Breathing hoarsely, future Larry went over to his shelf full of video games.

"Sir, do I need to get the inhaler out?" asked Addie.

"No…" future Larry wheezed. "It's just stress… just… gotta… take my mind off of this… you go search for another mad scientist to cure me… maybe Fawful knows a cure? Hmm, what shall I play today… Larry Koopa Tennis, or Larry Koopa Party? How about Larry KartU, or Fighting Larry Bros? Nah, I'm more in a Larry Koopa Zombie Heartbreaker mood. Let's see, original or sequel? Hmm… sequel it is!"

Future Larry put it on and turned on the game system but right when the start screen came on it all of a sudden turned to snow.

"AWWW COME ON! Don't tell me my plasma screen's got cancer now too!" Future Larry threw the controller at the giant TV. The plasma made a rippling splash where the controller hit it, and the snow faded to reveal King Bowser's face.

"K-K…K-King D-D-D-Dad? H-h-h-h-heeeey, merry K-K-Koopsmas hehehe…"

"Man, how does he do that?" Larry asked the spirit. This wouldn't have been the first time that his father had shown up on his television set to communicate with him or his siblings, usually whenever they are too busy with television or video games to answer the King's phone calls.

"Ach, it's nicht possible through pure Kryptoanalyse, assuming Ihre broadband connection ist information theoretisch secure, aber your Vater does have access to sehr mächtige Zauberei, does he not?"

"Merry Koopsmas son. Um, well, I just got a call from your sister, she's at the hospital getting ready to deliver. She called me up telling me 'King Daddykins guess what I just heard! Larry's got cancer, but he doesn't want to get treatment because he doesn't wanna go bald!'"

Future Larry cursed under his breath but laughed sheepishly to his father's face. "Ehehehe, you know what a gossip Sis is, always exaggerating everything…"

"But it's true!" said Wendy, who was still on video chat on Bowser's phone. "I overheard the doctor talking to Larry on the phone! You can't just let Larry let himself die from cancer!"

"I certainly won't, my darling Kootie Pie. Larry, now I really hate to be the bad guy and do this, but as your father I am going to have to force you to get cancer treatment."

"WHAAAAT? I mean-I mean, King Dad, now, c'mon, I'm just fine, see, I'm gonna go get treatment. My secretary's got my acupuncturist on the phone right now. There are plenty of ways to treat cancer, King Dad, without making your hair fall out…"

"LARRY, I AM NOT LETTING YOU TAKE YOUR CHANCES ON SOME QUACK CURE! Kamek himself told me that even though his alternative remedies can usually nurse measles or the flu or even Goombola back to full health, there is nothing, I mean NOTHING that he can do about cancer. You had a lot of great-great-grandparents and aunts and uncles that died from it. If Kamek can't cure cancer, what makes you think some Oriental pricking you up like a pincushion is gonna do it?"

"But King DAAAAAD-"

"NO BUT'S MISTER! I'M NOT GONNA LET ANOTHER SON OF MINE DIE YOUNG! YOU ARE GONNA LIVE AND THAT'S FINAL!"

"You can't force me to go to the doctor's against my will!"

"OH YES I CAN! SO LONG AS YOU ARE UNDER THE AGE OF MAJORITY IN MY KINGDOM, I HAVE THE LEGAL RIGHT TO MAKE YOU DO WHATEVER I WANT!"

Future Larry groaned. He may have been living on Isle Delfino by himself, but no matter where he lived, he was still, being a prince of Dark Land, under Dark Land jurisdiction, and emancipation before the age of majority was not at all permitted.

"Son, you will thank me for this someday. You will also thank your incredibly thoughtful sister for caring about you enough to look out for your well-being and tell me about this."

He held the phone up to show future Larry a closer view of Wendy, who was pointing and laughing. "Ha ha, you're gonna be a baldie!"

"Ohoho, at least I'm not stuck looking like the Pink Ribbon poster child, treatment or no treatment!"

Bowser pulled the phone back before future Larry could hear much of her screaming about his cruel remark. "Calm down Kootie, your egg's gonna pop out any minute now, you need to take it easy. I love you Princess!"

Bowser hung up the phone and turned off whatever he was using to contact Larry through his television. The video game resumed; a demo showing a silhouette of Larry kissing a zombie lady was playing.

"Welp, ladies, looks like I'd better scram before Pops comes to abduct me!" Future Larry ran out to the entrance, but he was greeted by a crowd of angry Piantas with picket signs.

"Yikes, what's got their grass skirts up in a bunch?" Larry asked the spirit.

"They used to be Kaffee growers before you bought Corona Mountain and fired them, weil you were too geizig to pay them genug for the Kaffee to be certified 'fair trade'. Und then Sie replaced them mit SubCon immigrants that are willing to work for Sklave wages."

Larry looked around to the side of the mountain and saw Shy Guys plodding along a trail carrying baskets full of freshly harvested coffee beans over their heads.

"Hhheeeey, but that's only good business, I mean, really, what kind of snob is gonna cough up double the price just so they can brag to all their boho bourgeosie buddies that they only drink 'fair trade'?"

Future Larry tried to sneak his way through the crowd, but they were too pushy, and he got stomped on a few times, and slapped by more than a couple of purses.

"Geez people, gimme a break I got CANCER! Grrrr I should've hired a bodyguard… uh oh…"

Future Larry heard the whirring of an airborne propeller, a sound that he was all too familiar with. The crowd turned still when they saw Bowser's Clown Copter, so enormous that some of the Piantas inquired out loud as to how it could stay aloft, let alone with someone as heavy as Bowser inside.

"I'M HERE FOR MY SON, HE'S IN BIG TROUBLE. HE'S A SMALL DRACONIC KOOPA WITH A BLUE MOHAWK. HAVE ANY OF YOU SEEN HIM?"

Future Larry was too slow in ducking into his shell. An orange Pianta lady with glasses and a coconut bikini grabbed Larry by his hair and yanked him up like a SubCon turnip.

"NOOOO! DON'T LET HIM TAKE ME AWAY! HE'S GONNA HAVE POISON FORCED DOWN MY THROAT… I'LL… I'LL GIVE YOU ALL YOUR JOBS BACK PLUS DOUBLE THE WAGES IF YOU ALL STOP HIM… please?"

Bowser restrained his kicking and screaming son as he took off to the cancer hospital. Afraid of finding out, and yet too anxious to know, Larry gulped and asked "S-s-soooo, what happens next?"


	13. Christmas Future 4point0

The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come took Larry to St. Egglantine's Children's Hospital. Larry had seen commercials and magazine adverts and billboards for this place before, asking for donations for research to find "the cure", which somehow never seemed to be found, and to provide medical treatment for children whose families couldn't afford it.

Future Larry weeped pathetically as his father dragged him in by the hair.

"WAAAAAaaah not my hair, anything but my beautiful swag-tastic hair!"

"QUIT CRYING AND MAN UP! YOU CAN BEAT THIS!"

While Bowser was checking him in, future Larry glanced flinchingly around at the surroundings. The waiting room had childish happy-faced clouds and stars and flowers and mushrooms painted on the walls, as well as a Christmas tree with fake presents underneath and wreaths hanging everywhere to make the place seem festive for the holidays. Like any other pediatric clinic, there were Busy Beads to play with, Dr. Seuss books to read, a television airing the little children's shows that they show in the morning on the kids' stations that don't air programming for tweens and up until the afternoon, and absolutely nothing to keep the teens occupied, unless they are interested in magazines like Discover or National Geographic but only eggheads like Ludwig and Iggy would be into those. His fellow patients included a penguin chick with no feathers, a Paragoomba with only one wing, and a pallid Toad child whose mushroom cap had lost all of its color.

Future Larry backed off from the patients as though their conditions were contagious, hid in his shell under a chair, and sucked his thumb until a pair of Fly Guy nurses picked him up, snarling and clawing and gnashing his gold fangs, to carry him off to the inside of a doctor's office.

"_Ciao_ Koopa! Itsa me, Doctor Mario!"

"DOCTOR WHO?" Future Larry shook his arms and hopped around in rage, the same way he had every other time he had seen this guy.

"E, not-a Doctor-a Who, thatsa wrong doc."

"YOU'RE the wrong doc, bud! I thought you were a plumber? Where did you get your degree, from watching House and Scrubs and ER?"

"Eh, no, I went-a back-a to-a school and got-a my-a medical technician certificate-a from the-a Mushroom Kingdom Community College. It was-a just-a twelve-a week-a program. Not-a quite an MD from-a Harvard Medical School, but what-a can I-a say? Ever since-a the hostile-a takeover by-a Wissenblag their-a standards have-a dropped. Now, itsa time to-a take-a your medication, Koopa!"

Doctor Mario put on a gasmask and a protective jumpsuit and protective gloves, opened a door that was marked with a "biohazard" symbol, and used a pair of tongs to pull out a jar of pills that was also marked with a "biohazard" symbol. He opened up the jar and pulled out a big pink pill.

"This-a pill is-a brand-a new treatment, called Pinkoribbicin. Itsa passed-a clinical trials for-a nother type-a cancer, and-a now we-a gonna test it on-a you."

"A n-n-new treatment, huh? S-s-so, it's less toxic than the old kind of treatment, huh? It doesn't make hair fall out, does it?"

"I-a sure you, it-a hasn't made-a single hair-a fall out-a any of-a the other subjects. They were-a all-a ready bald from-a the other treatments."

'Well, THAT'S reassuring," future Larry mumbled sarcastically right before the 'doctor' threw the pill into his mouth.

"OOF!"

"Now-a-swallow!" Doctor Mario handed him a little paper cup of water.

The pill was too large to hide under his tongue, and so far stuck down his throat that he would choke if he tried to spit it out, so Larry's only choice was to take the water and swallow.

"Now-a how you feel?"

"Ehhh…" Future Larry waited for several seconds. He felt the enormous pill melt away in his belly, warm, then hot, even stinging hot. The stinging hot spread all throughout his blood, and his stomach turned and his face turned pale. As he felt it spread to his head, his eyes teared and his vision blurred. Even just watching, Larry could vicariously feel the torture his future self was enduring. Larry had survived quite a few serious illnesses, but this was worse than having the flu, Koopapox, pneumonia and the highest fever he had ever had all at once. By a hundredfold.

"IT BURNS!" future Larry gasped, clutching his skull, scraping his claws down the sides of his head, his eyeballs turning backwards in their sockets. He looked like he was having both a seizure and an asthma attack.

"Of-a course it-a burns. Thatsa the only way to-a make-a sure that-a the cancer burns-a up. Itsa brand new-a formula with-a fast-a acting action! Now itsa time-a for your-a next-a round."

"NOOOO! NO MORE! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!" Future Larry lay writhing on the floor, ducking into his shell just in time to avoid having the second pill smashed down his throat. Dizzily, he pushed himself up and ran to the exit.

Larry panted, not as fast or as energetic as he had been even right before the pill was administered. His chest was burning; his EVERYTHING was burning. He barely managed to slam the door in 'Doctor' Mario's face before taking off with the sheer hope that adrenaline wouldn't fail him.

"HEY! You get-a back-a here, Koopa!"

Larry ran into a downwards staircase and fell. He hid inside his shell to prevent injury and when he fell to the bottom he found himself in the waiting room again, this time quite crowded. He ran out toward the entrance, so dizzy he was unable to see the people that were coming through and he bumped into them.

They were Princesses Peach and Daisy, carrying sacks full of Christmas gifts for the patients.

"Merry Christmas!" sang Peach. She handed candy canes and present boxes to the sick children.

"I brought cookies!" shouted Daisy. She took future Larry's hand and placed a blue star-shaped cookie in it, and then she pulled him closer to whisper to him.

"Psst, my cousin Lavender put her special cancer-curing nanobots in these cookies. Don't tell anybody, just eat it and they will make your cancer go away so fast you won't need the nasty chemo anymore."

"What the-nanobots?! Are you trying to kill me?!" Future Larry threw the cookie and tried to sneak by, but as he exited the building he narrowly avoided being stomped by somebody who had jumped down from the second story of the hospital. Doctor Mario, of course; who else could jump from that height and land on his feet with a "Hoohoo!"?

Future Larry turned around and ran back, screaming. He hid himself inside an elevator and pressed every single button. When it opened up on the second floor, he saw that Doctor Mario had already gone up the stairs to that story. He yelped and pushed the button that made the elevator door close.

When the door opened on the third story, future Larry darted his head out really quick to see if Doctor Mario was there yet. He wasn't. _He's probably climbing all the way up to the top story to wait for me there, thinking I'd do the obvious,_ future Larry thought as he snickered. He ran and hid in the first room he saw on that story.

"ROY?!"

"Yo Larry…" Roy's withered corpse sat with poison slithering up his veins, courtesy of the IV ports in his wrists.

"Aw man, Roy, you gotta help me, I don't wanna end up like you!"

"Cough-cough-wheeze-gasp-huh?" Roy seemed even duller than usual.

"Roy? Is that chemo fogging your brain up?" Future Larry thought about it and realized that his own brain was feeling blurry and slow.

"Roy, COME ON… I've only had one round and I'm already feeling like death warmed over. You're gonna die if you let them keep doing this to you."

"I'm gonna die if I don't…" Roy's facial expression was largely hidden behind his sunglasses, but it was still clear that, although he was in unimaginable pain, he just didn't have the strength or energy to cry anymore.

Suddenly future Larry heard the door open behind him.

"Hoohoo! You thought-a you out-a-smarted me, a-didn't you, Koopa?"

"GAAAAHHH!" future Larry shrieked like a girl, his voice still not quite all the way broken. He hid inside his quivering shell.

"Not… so-COUGH-fast…" Roy yanked out the IV ports and stood in front of Larry. "If you wanna poison my baby bro, you gotta get… past… me…"

Roy made a feeble lunge at Doctor Mario, but his fists missed when Doctor Mario did a backflip and landed right in front of future Larry. "Haha!"

Roy turned around and ran back toward him, but Doctor Mario jumped just in time and landed his feet on top of Roy's shell. Brittle from more rounds of chemo than he knew how to count, Roy's shell cracked like a fallen egg.

Future Larry grabbed a clipboard off the doctor's counter and used it as a tennis racquet to whack Doctor Mario's pills away.

"Larry… help…" Roy croaked. He was in critical condition, perhaps even broken up on the inside, and unable to push himself up.

Future Larry ignored him. One of the pills he smash-shot away had even gone in Roy's general direction, but future Larry was more worried about his hair, which he only now noticed was beginning to fall, in small clumps, blowing off his head with every swing of the clipboard,

Future Larry yelped a little at the sight of the floor looking like he had just been to the barber shop. He was beginning to pant after only a few swings. His stamina had always been quite weak, and the one dose of Pinkoribbicin had sapped him of the stamina he had gained from playing tennis.

Still ignoring Roy's faltering pleas for aid, future Larry thought fast and suddenly remembered something, and got an idea. He ran out the room and into the next, where he knew that the iron lung containing Lemmy was kept. Doctor Mario followed him in there, where future Larry stood with his hands on the plug, getting ready to pull it.

"Back off with that pink poison, or Lemmy gets it!"

"NO-no-no-no, you can't-a do that, that-a would-a be-a murder, and-a I would-a lose-a my-a job!"

Future Larry laughed. His brother was already dead to him in all meaningful senses, and as far as he was concerned his father was only wasting cash by keeping his body alive.

"STOP-A!"

"MAKE ME!"

Doctor Mario put the pill container down and attempted to seize future Larry, but that was future Larry's cue and he yanked the plug out as hard as his chemo-weakened muscles could manage.

The whirring of the machinery came to an abrupt stop. Lemmy's little diaphragm sunk as the machine exhaled for him his last breath.

The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come tut-tutted at this sight. "Mörderisch today, aren't wir?"

"H-h-hey, he was already as good as dead, you said it yourself! Now what happens, are they gonna put ME in the slammer?"

Laughing madly, the spirit teleported him back to Morton's cell at the juvenile detention center.

"Looks like you guys got a third cellmate!"

"Aw man! I hate it when this joint gets so crowded we have to have three guys to a room!" ranted Morton. "And it always happens right around the holidays! ALWAYS! Especially New Year's! We ain't got enough beds for them all! We got TWO! Bunk beds, count 'em! One, two! I hate sharing a bed with a dude and I can barely fit these beds with just me in it anyway! They better get this guy a cot cause I was here first so I get bed priorities!"

Future Larry was the third cellmate, but Morton was too busy ranting to notice him yet. He gulped at the sight of his brother, who now had the bulk of a sumo wrestler, harder and more massive than Roy had ever been in his prime. He turned and saw that the other cellmate was somebody he knew.

"Oh, hey, Boomer, hehe… so you got caught, huh? Sorry man…"

"It's all right," said Boomer, "It was fun while it lasted. Hey dude, I even got to do business with your sister, eh? I switched her prescription out for some Zzzz…uuuhhh, something that starts with a 'Z'."

"Hahaha, no wonder she got..." Future Larry traced his hands through the air in the shape of an egg.

"Haha oh, yeah, speaking of which, I got the paternity test mixed up too. Betcha the lucky man ain't happy."

Future Larry laughed and laughed, while Morton continued to rant.

"I first got here around New Year's myself, and dayum juvey was so crowded they were having FOUR guys to a room! FOUR! They didn't even have enough cots for everyone… hey waitaminute…."

Morton finally noticed who his new roommate was.

"YOU! HAHAhahaha, well lookie here, if it isn't that one brother I was telling you about. See, didn't I tell you that karma was gonna come back and bite 'im in the tail?"

"Ehehe… hey Mort. How's life in the big house?"

"Eh, well you know, it ain't easy, but you know, I get three squares, a roof over my head, plenty of exercise smashing cinder blocks up, and an hour of TV every day, a hour of internet every week if I behave myself. Some of the guys here say they got it good here compared to how they used to got it, man some of them were living on the streets, ain't that right Boomer?"

"Yeah, well I was actually working for your brother here, he was the guy that hired me to do that thing I told you about."

"For real? You ain't pullin' my leg homey? Well well, what a small world we live in, ain't it? Did he pay you well?"

"Eh, not exactly…"

"Hah, knew it. Once a cheapskate, always a cheapskate."

"W-w-well I didn't get caught for pulling a scam, oh no Larry's way too slick for that, hehehe… I actually ended up here because I, uh, murdered a guy." Future Larry puffed out his chest a bit. "But I'm still rich, so just give me a minute and I'll bail myself out."

"Bail yourself out? HAHAhahaha, oh no, I ain't gonna let you get away with it that easy." Morton smacked his fist into his palm.

"Eh, Mort?" Future Larry began to duck his head into his shell. "You're not gonna beat up your little bro, now, are you?"

"Heheh, you know, normally I'd just pummel you around and bruise you up a little. But we here in juvey live by a whole separate code from people on the outside, and here in juvey it's an eye for an eye, and a tooth" Morton punched Larry in the mouth "for a tooth."

Larry's mouth was bleeding. One of his golden fangs had been knocked out.

"Aaawww man, do you know how much that cost me?" future Larry whined. "Or how much painkiller they had to put me on? Getting implants ain't exactly a day at the park you know!"

"Say, Boomer, would you like to do the honors and knock out the other one?" Morton asked.

"Eh, no thank you, this is all between you and him." Boomer stood back and watched, wishing he had some popcorn to enjoy this with.

Morton yanked future Larry by the neck out of his shell and knocked out his other gold tooth. Future Larry cried, his face running with teary blood. "Give me a break, bro, I've got CANCER for crying out loud!"

"Quit lying, you ain't got cancer! You just trying to copy Roy now aren't you?"

"But it's true! The doctor told me this morning and Wendy overheard and told King Dad and he forced me to go to the doctor and they gave me nasty chemo – see? My hair's already falling out like an old man's! And I saw Roy and Lemmy there and the doctor had me cornered and was trying to kill me so I had no choice but to pull the plug on Lemmy."

"Shut up you liar – say WHAT? You did WHAT to Lemmy? Grrr…" Morton stomped his feet like a sumo wrestler, making the hard concrete floor rattle. "YOU'RE GONNA GET IT NOW!"

"B-b-bu-bu-but Lemmy was already brain dead anyway…" but future Larry was saved by the bell.

"Lunchtime! Oh boy, I hope they have circles and squares today! That's my favorite!" Morton turned back to future Larry and waved his fist at him. "We'll pick up where we left off later."

The Lakitu warden came with keys to open the cell. "All right boys, line up, single file, no pushing or shoving or hitting, just march straight on up to the cafeteria. Except for you." The Lakitu pointed at future Larry.

Future Larry wasn't exactly looking forward to juvey food, but he was not happy to be singled out, for he knew exactly why.

"It's time for your treatment-"

"NO!" Future Larry ran under the bed and hid in his shell.

The warden sighed. "Get out from under there, you are getting this treatment whether you like it or not…"

The Lakitu tried to reach his hands under there, but he would up being clawed and whacked by Larry's spinning shell.

"I'm not cut out for this," the Lakitu sighed, getting out a walkie talkie. "Send over the big guns officer, we're going to need tranquilizers for this kiddo."

"Eeeeeeep, things are about to bekommen quite _hässlich_," said the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. "How about we just skip zu what happens später, after Sie have finally been_ festgenommen."_

With another thundering blast of teleportation, Larry saw, lying on top of a blue crocheted blanket on a box-bed in a bleak and sterile-looking bedroom, his future self.

In a straitjacket.


	14. Christmas Future 5point0

Iggy leaned over Larry's bed, staring closely at his face. Larry was deep in REM sleep, his body utterly paralyzed, but a low and distant whining resonated in his throat, a clear indication that he was currently in the throes of a very distressing nightmare.

Curious, Iggy poked Larry. He didn't budge. He put his fingers over Larry's eyelids and pulled them apart.

"Iggy, keep your hands off the victim!"

"Bu-bu-but I just wanted to see what his eyes look like when they're doing the rapid eye movement thing… geez how long until he wakes up? What if he wakes up before you're finished with the dream?"

"He won't. Trust me. I've been studying neuroscience since before you were hatched, and I'm seeing to it that he remembers every bit of this dream after he wakes up, and even suffers flashbacks and déjà vu after he has awakened."

"Good, good, greeheeheeheehee. But golly, are you taking a long time with this nightmare of his… you've gotten to play with him for like four times as long as I got to! That's really UNFAIR come to think of it!"

"You're absolutely right. As a matter of fact, it has presently occurred to me that it would be most ideal for YOU to operate the next and very final phase of this nightmare."

"R-really? Oh boy! Soooo, what exactly were you planning for the finale hrrmmm?"

Ludwig gazed shiftily around the room, as though paranoid, and proceeded to whisper in Iggy's ear.

"Oh… mmhmm… ah, yes… oh that's good… great ideas Luddi-sama! I-I just have a feeeeew suggestions I'd like to run by you…"

Iggy began to whisper in Ludwig's ear.

"Yes… very good… AH!... excellent." Ludwig nodded in approval at every one of Iggy's ideas.

Iggy took the helmet, but just then he realized that his stomach was growling.

"Dangit I'm hungry for something solid… something chewy, and red and sugary OOH!" Iggy took a bag of Swedish Fish out of his shell. "Forgot about these! I was at Francis-sama's place yesterday, you see, and he told me to put them away, he said they might trigger his buddy Bjarne-"

"Oh, one of your dungeon buddies is a fish?"

"Um, no, he's Swedish." Iggy ripped open the package and ate a huge mouthful that stained his lips red and made him look like he was wearing badly applied cheap lipstick.

"Zero grams of trans fat huh?" Iggy read the package with his mouth full. "Talk about transphobic!"

After one mouthful, Iggy decided that he was full and he wrapped up the bag and closed it with a clip and shoved it into his shell to finish later. He lifted the helmet to put it on, but then hesitated.

"Urrrmm, Ludwig?"

"What?"

"Y-you know what's even uglier than Minecraft?"

Ludwig sighed in annoyance. "WHAT?"

"LEGO PEOPLE!"

"Don't make me change my mind and take the helmet back."

…

"WHAT?! WHY AM I IN THE NUTHOUSE?! I'M NOT NUTS! Man I'd rather go back to juvey than be here-"

"SSsssshhh, schweigt stille, plaudert nicht, just watch," the spirit whispered.

Future Larry lay as though dead, but for a faint, wheezing breath and a tortured whine.

"KNOCK KNOCK! Muahahahaha It's time to check your BLOOD pressure!" shouted a shrill voice in a faux-Transylvanian accent on the other side of the bedroom door. Future Larry woke up screaming.

"AAAAAHHH! AAAAHHH!" He tried and failed to push himself up. He rolled over and saw that he was in a straitjacket. "AAAAHHH!"

"MuahahahaaHAA… SIKE!" The door burst open and it was Ludwig, with his hair styled up in the late Iggy's style and Iggy's old glasses on his face. "Well well well, look who flew over the cuckoo's nest!"

"AAAAHH! AAAAAAHH! AAAAAAAAHHHHH-"

"SHUSH!" "Iggy" put his claws on Larry's mouth. "I-I-I know, it's gotta be hard on you not to have a thumb handy to suck on…"

"Ludwig? What – where am I – what happened – what's going on?!"

"I AM NOT LUDWIG! I am Iggy! IGGY!"

"No, you're LUDWIG! I know the special voices in your head today might be telling you otherwise, but you're not Iggy. Iggy kicked the bucket like a year ago, remember?"

"GRRRrrr I AM IGGY I AM IGGY IAMIGGYIAMIGGYIAMIGGY!" "Iggy" jumped around flailing his arms, much the same way his late brother used to. Future Larry had to admit, the impersonation was spot-on. Although "Iggy"'s voice was unmistakeably Ludwig's, he spoke in a higher register than Ludwig spoke using his normal speaking voice, and his speech mannerisms were so similar to Iggy's that if he heard him speaking in another room, Larry would likely think it was actually Iggy for a moment or longer. His physical mannerisms were also as Iggy-like as could be managed with Ludwig's heavyset build in place of Iggy's lanky frame; the twitching, the tics, quite distinguishable from Ludwig's caffeine jitters.

_Whoa, he... he actually thinks he's Iggy. Like for real. _Future Larry rolled his eyes and decided that he had best play along.

"All right all right you're Iggy, sheesh, my mistake what was I thinking. The chemo must be making my brain... um what's the word I'm looking for... see? Exactly hehehe... ahem, but if you don't mind me asking, WHY AM I THE ONE IN THE STRAITJACKET AND NOT YOU?"

"Iggy" laughed a very Iggyish laugh. "Well that's a loooong story, so, how about we rewind and start at the veeerrry beginning? Remember _last _Christmas?"

"Eehhh, vaguely..."

"_Vaguely_. You _vaguely _recall how you tattled on me for opening my present early and RUINED MY LIFE! Christmas Day I got all the presents I asked for - greeheehee even the sack of chocolate milk! - except the Fighting Kings game, which King Dad said I couldn't have until New Year's!"

"And you couldn't wait a WEEK?"

"What if somebody asked YOU to go without flirting or picking up girls let alone kissing and you know the icky stuff for a WEEK?"

Future Larry winced at the thought. "Point well made."

"I COULDN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! All the other nerds were making fun of me for not having that game! EVERYBODY was playing it! EVERYBODY! Francis-sama held a Fighting Kings tournament and I got my hiney whooped because I only got to play the game for a TEENSY little bit!"

"And THAT was reason enough to throw yourself out a window?!"

"You are also forgetting that thing you gave me as a Christmas present, since to get everybody off your back about not giving presents, you just picked the most random junk that you don't use anymore out of your pigsty bedroom to make half-hearted last minute gifts for everybody... and you just randomly gave me a half-empty bottle of paracetamol. Which just happens to come in handy to assist with topping oneself off should the whim strike but that was just a coincidence, wasn't it? I... I wasn't thinking straight at the time... my brain works screwy when I'm under distress, such as oh say FIGHTING KINGS WITHDRAWAL... I thought the pills were candy or something so I dumped them all in my mouth and I chewed and swallowed but they tasted NASTY! So I gobbled down all the chocolate bars that Morton gave me as a present to wash that flavor out and then... I-I don't remember why I jumped out that window, exactly... maybe I did it because somebody was calling poison control and I didn't want them to get me, and the window was the most feasible option for getting away from them..."

"And then... YOU DIED. Pretty dumb move, huh?"

"Died? Noooo, I didn't die, I just... left for a little while. But I came back, only this time I have taken up a shared residence, so to speak. Neeerheerheeeer..."

"Well, that explains why Lud took a whole new level in crazy," future Larry muttered. "He's always had a few screws loose, but he used to be at least sane enough to keep himself out of the nuthouse..."

"Actually, ol' Luddy buddy was very much distraught by my leaving, I think even more so than anybody... why, even right now; he's simply _beside himself! _Greeeheeheeheehee... he simply wouldn't, _couldn't _control his anger anymore. He showed up at Fort Francis for a Fighting Kings tournament, told them all I was sick, and then Francis tried to make Ludwig put away that bottle of cold-brew coffee with the picture of a chameleon on it because it 'triggered' him... aaand that was all it took. The MeowMaids had quiiiite the mess to clean up... Of course, you were always the first to call the bloody pigs on him whenever he threatened anybody's life, but in your defense it was usually yours. When he heard you bought shares of the Wissenblag corporation, well you would have been cold cuts on a smorgasbord if you hadn't gotten him detained. They gave him one more chance, he was able to keep his cool for quite a while, but when he found out that you bought the Corona Mountain Coffee Company and butchered their high standards, no more 'organic', no more 'fair trade'... well, that was the straw that broke the camel's back. And the key that locked him up for life." With that "Iggy" let out a hollow cackle with a frightening echo effect.

"Yeah yeah, blame it on me why don't you, that he blew a gasket over my business decision that I have every right to make."

"Hrrrmm, ah yes, you have been making all the right business decisions lately, haven't you? Quite the Fortune Street whiz kid, aren't you?"

"Heheh, only top on the list of Forbes' Bazillionaires under 20..."

"Ba-bazillionaires? Tell me, exactly how much is a bazillion? How do you write it in scientific notation - tha-that is, how many zeros after the one? Hrrmmm? Eh, never mind. Lemme hear a little bit more about your business decisions... what companies you have invested in, what marketing scams you've come up with, yadayadayada..."

"Um, well I'm making a killing off of Wissenblag dividends alone hahaha... but my first big investment was, you know that little game company that I made Larry Koopa: Zombie Heartbreaker with? It didn't sell so well the first year, but then next year I got my license and began go-karting, and after I rigged - ahem, won my first go-kart championship I became like a celebrity like for fifteen minutes and all of a sudden everybody and their mad uncle wanted my game, and so we made a sequel, and that's when the dough started rolling in, more and more dough for bigger and bigger investments... I bought out the Electrodrome, made it into Larry's Lights night club, where I am supposed to be deejaying tonight, aw shoot what time is it? All my peeps have gotta be worried wondering where I went... but I can't go anyway with my hair looking like... how does my hair look? Huh? Be honest..."

"Iggy"'s face burst out in snickers. "Like a Troll doll with scabies! GAHAHAH!"

Larry let out an anguished sob, then cleared his throat to repress further bawling. "Anyway Morton turned out to be selling chocolate bars to raise money for Wissenblag, but he suddenly changed his tune about them and gave away all their chocolates for free - and wound up in the clink for it. I figured, hey, those guys have gotta be a pretty sound investment. But I couldn't have Morton running around blowing the whistle on them all over the place, and he wasn't gonna be in juvey forever. I was also gonna get in big trouble if they found evidence that I may have assisted in your death. So, I tampered with the evidence to make it look like Morton's chocolate bars poisoned you and made you go psycho and, well, heheheh, I squashed two Paragoombas with one stomp there, hey?"

"Iggy"'s face contorted into the sardonic grin of an electroshock victim. "And later you bought shares of WarioWare, which everybody knows is as greedy and cruel to their employees as that other company that begins with a 'W', you know the one in the real world?"

"Dude, Wario's my idol. He's making bank, so he's got to be doing something right!"

"And since Wario-san just happened to own a few trans-fatty acid production plants that he didn't know what to do with after the organic health food craze kicked in and sales for his notoriously unhealthy Wario Snax started to tank, you came up with this really clever sales pitch: 'Don't be transphobic - eat Wario Snax now with extra Trans Fats!' Hrrrrmm, marketing that targets and exploits an oppressed minority group, that's a new low, even for you."

"Pretty genius, eh?" Future Larry's laughing came out in sheepish whimpers.

"UPUPUP! I, and only I among the denizens of this loony bin, have the IQ anywhere near high enough - greeheeheee by twice over! - to be even thinking of using the word 'genius'. You, maybe if you work hard and are lucky you are at best a 'visionary'. Anyway where was I... aaaaah, yes, go on, tell us more of your big success story."

"Well, oh yeah, I saw this big poster at school for this science fair offering a humongous load of prize money, and you know I never even bothered entering before because you and Ludwig always won that thing, well just you after Ludwig went to uni, but then I realized, with you out of the way, I actually stood a chance at winning that prize money. That is, if I do as Cheatsy does best - cheat. It was foolproof - I raided your stash of top-secret brilliant science ideas and entered one of them, and nobody could prove that it wasn't mine, since you of course were gone, and before I knew it I had more billionaires than women throwing themselves at me, with prize purses and sponsorships and well I did the smart thing with the money - invested in Wissenblag. But first I bought myself an entire Foot Locker hehehehehe...hey, are you listening?"

"Iggy" was laughing like a maniac; loud and shrill and spastic, it made one wonder if he would not asphyxiate from not being able to stop laughing long enough to catch a breath. Future Larry felt a quiver of dread, knowing that whenever Iggy finds something THIS funny, chances are that nobody else does...

"AHAHAahaha... aaaahhh, yes, I see. So you raided my secret stash, of course by that you mean the big black safe in the dungeon next to my computer on MY side of the lab, isn't that right?"

"Yep."

"Cracked the code, with your ace lockpicking skills?"

"Yeah, it wasn't nearly as hard to break into as I thought, but I guess it didn't really need to be since it had been guarded by mutant Piranha plants and a ginormous Chain Chomp that would have eaten me alive if they weren't dead from you not being alive to feed and water them in a while..."

"Aaaah, yes, so you broke into my safe where I keep all of the records of my top-secret FAILED inventions and science projects."

"Eh? Failed? What the... but..."

"Mmmhmm. You didn't think I would keep my GOOD ideas in there, did you? No sirree, not since I got a photographic memory, no place to store 'em like up in the ol' noggin!" "Iggy" tapped "his" head, smirking.

"Bu-bu-bu-bu-but... I-I-I mean, if that project of yours was a flop, it was still good enough to win first place and a bunch of other awards at the science fair!"

"Thank you, no need to tell me, even my failures are more brilliant than most people's successes." "Iggy" beamed, patting himself on the back. His Ludwig face bore Iggy's brand of pride; gleeful and childlike, not at all like Ludwig's smug sense of self-satisfaction. "By the way, would you care to tell exactly which scrapped project of mine you picked to purloin a plethora of pernicious profits from?"

"I dunno... it was some kind of cancer project... I...I-I picked it because I know how the judges will eat up any kind of project that's... cancer related..."

"AHA! Now, I'm gonna let you in on some top-secret info that even Luddi-sama is not privy to... about that project you picked. That was a cancer test strip I invented. My intention was for it to test any kind of cancer using just a drop of your blood or other liquid from your body, and change color depending on what kind of cancer you have. It's now being used at doctor's offices everywhere, because you used your money and influence to rush it to the market without even completing clinical trials. Alas, if you had only read and properly digested the contents of the paper, see; it was scrapped for a reason... The sensitivity of the test for all cancers is over 99 percent, that is to say, if you have cancer, more than 99 times out of a hundred it will tell you. However, the _specificity_ is a mere 10 percent, give or take half a percent. What that means is, if the test tells you you have cancer, nine out of ten times it's a false alarm."

Future Larry felt chills and color draining out of his face while "Iggy" explained the project to him. "So you're telling me..."

"Iggy" nodded.

"You're telling me that I DON'T HAVE CANCER? That King Dad dragged me to the hospital where I was force fed POISON, and now I'm losing my HAIR, and then they put me in juvey and my gold fangs got knocked out, and now I'm in a STRAITJACKET at the INSANE ASYLUM all for NOTHING?"

"M-more than likely... given your age, that you haven't even hit puberty long enough ago to have had long enough KPV exposure to develop a Koopapapillocarcinoma, I'd say the odds are even less than ten percent that you have anything serious. Maybe nonserious precursor stuff, but nothing worth poisoning you over. Same thing with Roy; I TOLD him not to listen to the doctor, but that time that I warned everybody not to get a flu shot because it's contaminated with live Goombola virus gives me a zero for credibility in his eyes. But either way, well, it kinda serves you right. You invested in a lot of evil stuff that caused lots of pain and suffering for others, virtually destroying your own family, and would you look at that? It's backfired. Aaaand that's why you're in the straitjacket now, Larry-kun. You brought it all on yourself."

Future Larry screamed in rage, rage that melted away into tears. "I'm sorry, IggyLudwig... whoever you are... both of you... I didn't know this was going to happen... just... just let me make it up to you. Help me get out of here, it shouldn't be hard. Tell King Dad that I stole your project and the cancer diagnosis isn't legit and once I'm outta here I'll bail you out of this place. Look out there, there's a free payphone, go on, tell him!"

"Ohhhh, I have every intention of letting you make it up to me... but I have a better idea. That straitjacket you're wearing... is no ordinary straitjacket."

Future Larry yelped as he felt the sleeves of the straitjacket stiffen and tighten like a sphygmomanometer around his limbs. His entire body flattened out and became stiff as a board. The stiffening propped him up onto his feet, and, too stiff to keep his balance, he tumbled off the bed.

"AAAAHHH! WHAT-what kind of hex did you put on this thing?!" The straitjacket loosened and then forced him to leap up onto his feet. He saw "Iggy" bring his arm out from behind his back to pull what looked like a Wii remote out of his shell. Or more likely hammer space; if he had anything in his shell, the ward employees would have confiscated it.

"It's a little thing Luddi and I invented. Behold, the _Zugzwangsjacke! _Ehm, Ludwig-senpai was the one who named it. As far as I gather it just means forced movement jacket or something like that, but Luddi thinks it's an awfully clever name for some reason. Anyway, while you're wearing it, I can play you like a video game!"

"Iggy" raised the controller while mashing a button on it to make future Larry jump. Giggling, he shook the controller to make future Larry fall on the floor and shake like he was having a seizure. He then made future Larry stand up in first position, plie, pirouette, tiptoe en pointe, perform a grand jete and land in arabesque.

"Da da da dadada DA DA DA DAdaDA" "Iggy" sang in the Can-Can tune, while making future Larry do the can-can.

"AAAaaaAAAaaaAAAaaaAAAaaaSTOP! STOP!" Future Larry's plea was answered with a loosening of the straitjacket that left him collapsed on the floor.

"Sorry, blame that on Ludwig, he did put an awful lot of ballet buttons on this thingie... but it can make you do waaaaay more than that. See, with this baby, you can make it up to me for telling on me and having my Fighting Kings confiscated. Not only can I make you have a great fall like Humpty Dumpty, but I can make you go GIDDYUP just like all the Kings' horses!"

Future Larry was made to buck like a horse and gallop about, but he fell flat on his face, because his front limbs were not free to enable him to gallop like a horse.

"Mmmkay, small problem there, but I can still make you fight and hack up stuff with a sword just like all the Kings' men!"

Future Larry felt his upper body being jerked around as the strapped sleeves of the _Zugzwangsjacke _struggled to pull free and wave around as though wielding a sword; instead, he was forced to thrash his head around like a headbanger, waving what was left of his hair around like a sword, sprinkling loose blue strands around the bedroom until he fell on his face again.

"Ooohhhkaaayyy, so mayhaps there be a few bugs to work out.."

"Yeah, like maybe the strapped down ARMS?"

"Geeheeheee buuuuut, could you possibly think of a better way to repent for that cruel deed you've done to me? You get to stay here, with me, and play Fighting Kings with me, every day, 24/7, as much as I want, for as long as I want, whenever I please. What could possibly be a schweeter deal than that? Stay here with me, and play here with me. You and me, be playmates. FOREVER."

"Iggy" said it with the carefree, innocent tone of a kindergartener saying it to a new friend on the playground. Future Larry's eyes widened as he allowed that bit to sink in.

_Forever... _

"Wh...wh-why, you self-centered lunatic!"

"Ohohohohoooiii, look who's talking!"

"Yeah, hehe, exactly. Come to think of it, I am responsible for Ludwig being put here in the nuthouse, Roy being poisoned half to death, Wendy having a baby and getting dumped by her boyfriend, Morton getting thrown in the slammer, and Lemmy being, well, dead, but all you care about is that I tattled on you and got your stupid video game taken away!"

"Ohhhhhh? So NOW he has his priorities straight? He finally understands what REALLY matters, does he now? You're... you're wrong about one of those by the way... you are not responsible for Lemmy-chan's death. You may have pulled the plug, but that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things; his goose was cooked, or shall I say flash-frozen when he fell in the icy water at Sherbet Land last April and nearly drowned and went brain-dead, and that has nothing to do with anything you did."

"Ehehe about that... see, I told Lemmy the Freezie tasted like real sherbet and I dared him to go lick it, and his tongue got stuck to it and it was real funny to watch but then the Freezie dragged him off the edge of the ice and he got dunked in the water... "

"Iggy" froze, all except for his face. It twitched at parts. His head was cocked to the side, his serpent's tongue lolling out, his eyes held in a glassy gaze behind swirls of gloss reflecting from his glasses lenses, one pupil a tiny black pinprick, the other huge, like a pupil under the effect of belladonna. He twitched randomly; at the eyes, mouth, fingers, as though hooked to electrodes that were administering an electric seizure...

"Ehhh... A-are you all right bro?" Future Larry asked; meekly, knowing his concern would be written off as insincere.

"Iggy" snapped out of it. "Ohhhh I'm fine, just fine. Positively PEACHY, thanks for asking. As a matter of fact, Iiii just changed my mind and came up with an even BETTER idea, mrrrhrrrhrrrhrrrrmwahahahahaaa, I'd reckon it's not even a stretch to say the BEST IDEA EVER... urrm, an idea on how to make you PAY. You won't be needing THIS anymore."

"Iggy" whipped out the remote gain and pressed a button that caused the _Zugzwangsjacke _to unbuckle and open up and toss future Larry out like luggage out of the trunk of an enchanted car in a modern fantasy movie. It then walked over to "Iggy", who embraced it with the style and manner of an aristocrat being fitted for a fashionable dinner jacket, even as it bound his arms together like a Chinese finger trap and wound its straps tight under his crotch to fasten at the back around his shell.

Future Larry flexed his claws and stretched his arms; nevertheless, he was hardly relieved to be freed from that thing. Iggy's schemes never made sense at first glance, but they always worked out, in indirect and incredibly convoluted ways that nobody, often not even Ludwig had been able to foresee. That was what made them so especially terrifying.

"Teeheeheeheehee, it's only appropriate, after all, that I make you pay in the exact same way that you made me SUFFER - by telling on King Dad."

Future Larry's jaw dropped. "You... you're kidding. We're locked up in what's virtually a jail for psychos, which is worse than the worst kind of parental punishment - like being grounded a bazillion times over, and you're gonna get your revenge by telling on King Dad." Future Larry scoffed, albeit not without a lingering hint of sheepishness.

"Mmyep." "Iggy" ran out to the free payphone in the common room. Future Larry followed and watched as "Iggy" pressed his face against the phone, rolling his tongue all over it until it got tipped off the hook. He then dialed Bowser's phone number with his remarkably adroit tongue and put his face down to the dangling receiver.

"GWAAAAAH WHY? ALWAYS WHEN CHARLEYYY AND FRIENDS IS ON! WHO IS IT?" Future Larry could hear Bowser's voice; apparently there was only a speakerphone setting at this place.

"King Dad King Dad guess what guess what?"

"GRRRR make it quick, I'm in the middle of my favorite show here!"

"Larry's here in the happy house with me now King Dad! Can you guess why?"

"GWWWAAAAH! He's supposed to be in the hospital getting cancer treatment!"

"Weeeell it's a looooong story King Dad but here's what happened: he had to get chemo but he didn't want chemo so he went and played a little game of Hide and Go Seek with the doctor until he got cornered in Lemmy's room and he pulled the plug on Lemmy and then they sent him to jail"

"HE WHAAAAT?! HE MURDERED HIS OWN BROTHER!?"

"Relax King Dad, for the last time, Lem Lem was a _vegetable_. And then he got beat up at juvenile hall and he still wouldn't take his meds so they put him here in the happy house with meeeee since he obviously must be sick in the brain if he wants to die from cancer, even cancer that he likely doesn't have since those new cancer test strips have been shown to have over a 90 percent rate of false positives but that research got buried of course, not unlike the fellow who did it-"

"FALSE POSITIVES? ARE YOU SERIOUS YOU KOOK?"

"Luddy and I have been telling you, King Dad, but you neeeeever listen... but it's Larry's fault. He did it, yup, him and his deeeeeeep pockets! He's in bed with a lot of high-places type folks these days, yuuup, doing all kinds of icky stuff in the sack with 'em too-"

"GRRRAAAAHHH I DON'T WANNA HEAR IT! At least I know now where to send his Koopsmas gifts. Merry Koopsmas now leave me alone to watch the Charleyyy and Friends holiday special! GOODBYE!"

Bowser hung up and all that was heard was the noise of a beeping phone off the hook. 'Iggy' stared future Larry in the face with a sly, very Iggyish expression, as though he had gotten some serious vengeance, but Larry could only laugh.

"THAT'S what you call payback? Puh-lease. You did not even tell him the worse of what I have done! Your big plan has more holes than an MRI of your diseased brain!"

"Oh, you're finished, Larry. You are DONE. FOR." Future Larry missed the tone of deadly calm, so rare for Iggy that no sane person would mess with him when he used it, but the Larry that was watching quietly with the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come did not miss it.

"Love to stay and chat, can't," 'Iggy''s tone suddenly turned bright. "Got a game with Ludwig-senpai, and it's his turn. But you can watch. If you're lucky, and one of our pieces turns up missing, then YOU'LL get to play! But never fear, they always show up in the squishy room sooner or later." Giggling like an innocent, carefree little girl, 'Iggy' bounced off to the other side of the room where there were rows of residents standing still. He shook out his hair and tossed the glasses off and he was Ludwig again.

"I BEG YOUR PARDON?" Ludwig stood over the same frightened, quivering little Magikoopa as last time. "Mister-Oh-I-can't-step-on-the-black-spaces so I made you a white tile bishop so you wouldn't have to?"

"B-but I-I wanted to be a fairy..."

"Did _I_ COMMAND you to move from your position? Did I now? Or did you simply declare yourself competent to fianchetto out of your own volition? _You_, Jerry. HEH. Competent to do your own thinking. HEH HEH. Really now."

"That's really not a bad move, you know," said the Beanish standing on the square that Jerry had been on last time. Larry recognized him as that one named Garbanzo from Fort Francis.

"Pipe down pea brain, I know what I'm doing! I'll have you know that I have more chess tournament trophies than your precious Francis used to have Pink Princess dolls. Which, come to think of it, HEH, is really saying a LOT. HEH. HEH HEH. WEH HEHEH WAHAHA. WAHOO! WOO HOO HOO!"

The Magikoopaling's face screwed up at the mention of "Francis".

"I-I-I m-m-m-miss F-Francis!"

"I miss Francis too," said Garbanzo. "I miss getting to _play_ board games instead of having to BE a board game."

"GARBANZO... I have a sack of jelly _beans _in hammer space - really good ones too, got them while at a tournament in Norway, taste just like Jelly Bellies - and I'm not afraid to use it!"

Future Larry sniggered, both at the absurdity of being 'triggered' by candy - maybe he used Nestle Turtles to trigger and manipulate Jerry? Or maybe that off-brand Lucky Charms type cereal that comes in magicky/wizardy shapes? - and because it was an empty threat coming from someone in a straitjacket. The other Larry was similarly entertained, but somewhat distracted by the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come's distant muttering.

"See, Francis is a positive influence on our lives. A game day at Fort Francis is the highlight of our month, gives us troubled nerds something to look forward to, he's a great role model... without him, this is what would happen to some of those guys, they'd end up here or even worse, so whatever you think about him Luddi, don't you dare say that Francis-sama isn't a good person-"

"Eh, spirit? Who are you talking to?"

"Vat? Ach, oi it was just the voices in meinen Kopf. Sometimes I muss remind them zu schweigen stille und concentrate und remain on ihre side of DIE VIERTE WALL..."

Future Larry stood in front of the tightly locked entrance and watched the 'two' play for a while, entertained more by their banter with the 'pieces' than by the game itself, until the door swung open and he was knocked over.

"Larry Koopa!" shouted the voice of a Pianta nurse with a clipboard.

"Right here," said Ludwig, smiling wickedly, pointing at the blue shell quivering next to the doorhinge.

It was almost a fight after that, but future Larry backed down when the needles were brought out and he went quietly to the medical ward. When he was offered a pill to make him "feel better", knowing that he would be "persuaded" to take it one way or another, he pretended to play along and hid the yellow tablet under his tongue, planning to spit it out later, only to find out it had dissolved under his tongue by the time he got the chance.

Future Larry was so angry he could just bash his head into a wall, but he didn't have the energy. His mind felt like it was disintegrating just like the pill he was given, into a sloppy pile of sludge. His visual field also sloshed around like a pool of sludge, and his body was melting over the floor, bones feeling like clay...

Future Larry woke up in his room to the snapping of Velcro being tightened around his arm. He almost yelped in alarm, thinking he was being put back in a straitjacket, but it was just the Pianta nurse checking his blood pressure. It suddenly brought to mind all those times that Iggy had complained about being woken up 50 times a night to have his arm squeezed in a sphygmomanometer after coming home from his "vacation", as he called it, almost as if to kid himself about what had really went on.

_That's what this is, I'm just on vacation, _future Larry thought. "Nightmare" or "bad dream" would have jumped to mind first, but those thoughts were blocked from his mind, for a dreamer becomes lucid and awakens the moment they realize that they are in a dream. _That's what I will tell all my peeps at the club and all my buds at the radio station. _

His thoughts were mildly delirious under the weight of whatever he was on... had they given him chemo while he was out from the magical disappearing zombie drug tablet? Future Larry was certain that he had been given something - by suppository. He knew this because of something he had experienced during his first time in juvenile hall, an experience that he tried to forget.

But future Larry was so woozy that he was not sure if he would even know if he was on that other kind of poison. _Forget it, if I lose all my hair I'll pretend I shaved it for some cause... think positive, Larry, you don't have cancer, all you gotta do is tough it out long enough to make a few more phone calls and you're home free. You're young, you're rich, you earned your first bazillion at sixteen for crying out loud, and you're one of the hottest up-and-coming DJs in the Tri-Kingdom area, it won't be long before you're big enough to be dating celebrity chicks like all the hottest DJs get to do. _

"You've got modeling and movie deals in your future, for crying out loud, man, come on, don't give up now!" The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come stared at Larry as he talked to his future self. "Ach, sprechen to him Selbst. And they call mich the _verrückt _one."

The dusk-darkened room became bright again as the door burst open. "You've received Christmas presents, Larry Koopa."

Future Larry sat up and rubbed the sludgy feeling out of his eyes. He felt mildly excited about receiving gifts, even though it was a meager pile compared to the crateloads he had back at Corona Mountain. Two small gifts on top of a largish one.

The two on top were wrapped in shiny blue and silver Hanukkah wrapping paper. Bowser did not know the difference between the different Real World December holidays, so dreidels and Star of David decorations and even candelabras that resembled menorahs became a part of the King's Koopsmas traditions. The one on top was addressed from King Dad, and future Larry opened that one first.

It was a framed photo of Bowser, Ludwig, Lemmy, Roy, Iggy, Wendy, Morton, and Larry all together. Future Larry recognized it at the Koopsmas family photo from the last Koopsmas that they spent all together, when everyone was happy, alive and healthy. Everyone in the photo was smiling, except for Larry, who was scowling and looking away from the camera.

Future Larry did not like this present. It made him feel... uncomfortable_. How inconsiderate of King Dad, to give me a gift such as this! How dare he give me something just to make me feel miserable, by reminding me... of how miserable I was that year!_

He threw it, and opened the next gift. It was from Kamek. Future Larry could already tell it was a picture frame.

And it certainly was. The picture in the frame was what looked like a two-year-old's crayon drawing, on paper that had seen better days. The eighties, for instance.

The subject of the crayon drawing appeared to be a woman with wild scribbly blue hair and a star on her cheek, holding some round thing with a star on it - a Coin perhaps? It appeared that she was handing it to a smaller figure that looked like a little boy, also with scribbly blue hair and a star on his cheek.

Future Larry did not know what to think of this. He figured he must have drawn it when he was a toddler, although he could not remember drawing it. _This must be how I got my first Coin_, future Larry thought. He did not remember how he got his first Coin, but he could not remember a time that he didn't have it.

Future Larry still had it, up in hammer space somewhere. He remembered how precious, shiny, and all his that it was; he remembered loving it more than anything. He remembered feeling sad for how lonely the Coin was, and going on treasure hunts to find all of the Coin's lost brothers and sisters and friends, promising it that he would reunite it with all of them someday; a quest that he had never quite abandoned, even now...

Future Larry began to feel uneasy about this gift as well. He was not sure why, and he did not even try to justify it to himself. He threw it at the wall, which it hit with a loud clatter, just as he did with the last one.

The final gift, wrapped in paper covered with images of rocking horses, was cube-shaped, and what it contained was anybody's guess. Curious as to who it was from, future Larry was almost more eager to open the card than the package itself. He ripped off the pale purple envelope, leaving a hole in the wrapping paper, and read the name of the person it was addressed from.

_"Petulia"_

Future Larry gaped. Talk about a ghost from his past. _ Her? Why, she's... she... hehe, well, well, well, look who wants me back now that I'm a bazillionaire. _

Future Larry laughed as he opened the card, which also had a picture of a rocking horse on it. _This should be a laugh. Does she seriously think I'm gonna take her back, now that I'm rich enough to land any chick in the Galaxy? _

_"Dear Larry,_

_Season's greetings, and congratulations on your new fame and fortune! I know that we did not end things on the best of terms on that day about two years ago, so I just want to let you know that it's all water under the bridge to me now and that there are no hard feelings. _

_I am very sorry about what happened. All I can say is that I didn't deserve you, and you didn't deserve me. I hope you are happy with whoever you're with now, and while I know that we can never be what we once were, I am telling you from the bottom of my heart that I am over you anyway. _

_So, to prove to you that there are no more hard feelings, I made this really neat gift just for you. I apologize for it taking so long; I intended to have it ready to give to you by last Christmas but instead it took me nearly two years to complete it. I am very proud of it, and I hope that something good comes of you being treated to this!_

_Sincerely, _

_Petulia"_

_Hahaha, talk about clingy and desperate! She totally still wants me, what kind of chick spends two years making a Christmas gift for a guy if she doesn't really want him! _Future Larry peeled the ripped wrapping paper away and moved the flaps and found a little terracotta pot with a Nipper plant inside.

_Hmm, a plant, should've figured she'd make me one of these. I wonder what genes she crossed it with. I should feed it right away so it doesn't starve to death like all my others. _Future Larry checked the box, but there was no food or feeding instructions. He reread the card, and turned it over and just then noticed the P.S. she wrote on the back of the card:

_"P.S. no need to provide additional food. You should make an excellent first meal for it."_

_Additional food... what does she mean?! She didn't even provide food for it to begin with! Make it an excellent first meal for it out of WHAT?!_

Just then future Larry noticed there was a label on the pot that said "Boyfriend-Eating Plant".

_Awww, how cute, I'll bet she's selling these to scorned women such as herself to give as gag presents to their ex-boyfriends. That's a really great idea, hehehe, why didn't I think of that?_

Meanwhile, the shadow over future Larry's head was growing, as the plant grew before his very eyes. Future Larry turned his face up, and saw that his little Nipper had grown into a beast with the teeth of a Chain Chomp, jaws large enough to devour him with one swallow. But... it wouldn't REALLY do that... would it?

Future Larry backed up as the Piranha leaned in on him. "Hehehe... nice plant... zilla... you don't want to eat me, I-I-I taste like chemo, I-I-I-I'll make your leaves fall out!"

Future Larry hid inside his shell as the plant sniffed him. It seized the shell with one quick snap of its jaws and leaned back as it swallowed.

Future Larry stuck his limbs out, punching and kicking and clawing the whole way down, screaming while he still had air, trying to scramble upward while being swallowed down the stem.

"Get me... LET ME OUT! HEEELLLPPP!" Future Larry's voice became gargled, presumably from being drowned by digestive sap. He was too weak from the drugs to put up much fight, or he might have stood a chance.

The boyfriend-eating plant lay down, resembling a boa constrictor that had the visible lump of a rat it had just swallowed. The rat that the plant had swallowed ceased quickly to wriggle or make noise, and the lump disappeared while the plant took a nap.

"Eh... spirit?" Larry asked in a whimpering voice, as soon as the speechless shock of witnessing his future death had eased up. "This... this isn't REALLY going to happen to me, hehe, right? I mean, if I remember this..."

"Ach, but WILL you remember it? Now THAT ist sicherlich eine question for the ages. Ach, would Sie take einen Blick at the time! I vergessen to pick up my spare lab coats from the Putzerei!" The spirit took out a keychain and pressed a button from a device, causing it to shout "ROADHOG!" while a red light on it blinked and a DeLorean with an 80s-retro-futuristic-looking flux capacitor in the back teleported out of nowhere.

Larry ran to the car with him but the spirit stopped him. "Ach, es tut mir leid, but it only fits one person!"

"WHAT?! You can't leave me here!" Larry banged on the windshield but was wiped off quick by the windshield wipers.

"It is out of meinen hands, so, um, I wish you viel glück. _Wiederschauen_!" With that the DeLorean roared off through another dimension.

_Hey, what am I worried about, it's not like I'm really here... it will all fade out in a moment... maybe when the next ghost arrives... oh wait, there were only supposed to be three, not counting that first one..._

The plant woke up. It sniffed around the room for a second, and Larry watched, fascinated in spite of it all, until it turned toward him.

It can't really see me... or smell me... or eat me hehehe... it's just a coincidence that it's getting this close... and that I can feel its steaming breath...

The plant got right in Larry's face, opened its mouth and roared. It looked like the inside of the mouth of a T-Rex.

"RAAAAAHHHH!" the plant made a hissing roar, and Larry felt like he was being sucked in. He turned and ran, screaming, but he only felt himself being drawn deeper and deeper... the plant's breath becoming colder and colder...

It felt like a freezing wind tunnel, which twisted into a vortex that turned Larry's body around. He was no longer in the psych ward bedroom with the Plantzilla, but in the darkest depths of the Underwhere, being sucked in by the breath of a skeletal beast with six wings...

"BONECHILL! NOOOO... Have mercy on me... I-I-I don't wanna be a Skellobit! Pleeeeassse... I'm not THAT evil... PUHLEASE, ONE MORE CHANCE I BEG OF YOU... THEE... ANYBODY? QUEEN JAYDES? KING GRAMBI IN THE OVERTHERE ABOVE, I PRAYETH OF THEE, SAAAAVETH MEEEEEE! ETH?"

Larry's voice was drowned out by the roar of Bonechill's polar vortex. Lemmy was probably a happy Nimbi named Lembi fluttering about in the Overthere, Iggy was fooling around with Ludwig's body and would probably be a Shayde in a reasonably tolerable part of the Underwhere if he were made to leave Ludwig's body and go back, but Larry's soul would soon be swallowed up and reborn a nameless, faceless, ugly Skellobit to serve in Bonechill's dreary dungeon for all eternity.

**Sorry for how long this chapter took; I was busy with school (remember I started this story and wrote most of it during winter break) and this chapter was, well, long. **

**By the way, thanks again to Treacle Parcheesi for letting me use Jerry, and congutti (formerly ladywig on deviantART) for letting me use Petulia. Also a happy (belated by TWO MONTHS) birthday to her... yes, that's how long I've been working on it, that I meant to get it out by her birthday two months ago.**

**Yes, I made up Garbanzo. No, I didn't make up Charleyyy. And everybody else is made up by people at Nintendo I guess so don't sue me.**

**And before anybody asks... the story is NOT over until I change the status from "In-Progress" to "Complete". **


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